61F-T  OF 
ROBERO" 
BELCHER. 


MODERN  POETS 


AND 


HRISTIAN  TEACHING 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

BY 

JAMES  MAIN  DIXON 


NEW  YORK:    EATON  &  MAINS 
CINCINNATI:   JENNINGS  &  GRAHAM 


BELCHER 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
EATON  &  MAINS. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.  Modern  German  Thought  in  Arnold's  Teaching   -     7 

II.  Arnold  and  French  Thought 31 

III.  Arnold  and  Wordsworth  as  Religious  Teachers  -     48 

IV.  The  Mirror  and  the  Cup 71 

V.  Arnold's  Sympathy  with  the  Brute  Creation      -        97 

VI.  Matthew  Arnold  and  Modern  Science     -       -        -113 

VII.  A  Nineteenth  Century  Sadducee          -        -  123 

VIII.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  in  Arnold-        -        -        -  148 

Index 163 


BELCHER 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
EATON  &  MAINS. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.  Modern  German  Thought  in  Arnold's  Teaching  -     7 

II.  Arnold  and  French  Thought 31 

III.  Arnold  and  Wordsworth  as  Religious  Teachers  -    48 

IV.  The  Mirror  and  the  Cup 71 

V.  Arnold's  Sympathy  with  the  Brute  Creation      -        97 

VI.  Matthew  Arnold  and  Modern  Science     -        -  -  113 

VII.  A  Nineteenth  Century  Sadducee          -        -  123 

VIII.  The  Fatherhood  of  God  in  Arnold-        -        -  -  148 

Index 163 


PREFATORY    NOTE 

THESE  studies,  thrown  into  the  form  of  eight 
lectures,  deal  with  those  phases  and  currents  in  the 
life  and  philosophy  of  Matthew  Arnold  which 
determined  his  religious  creed  and  gave  the  final 
drift  to  his  poetry. 

Good  poetry  ought  to  be  taken  seriously  and 
analytically.  I  remember  the  shock  I  received  as 
a  youth  in  reading  in  an  intensely  orthodox  journal 
a  favorable  review  of  a  book  of  poems  which  I 
knew  contained  avowedly  agnostic  opinions.  Had 
these  opinions  been  couched  in  prose,  extreme 
denunciation  would  have  fallen  upon  them.  Now, 
true  poetry  is  one  of  the  subtlest  mediums  for 
influencing  thought  and  belief,  and  its  aesthetic 
appeal  is  only  secondary.  The  theology  in  Arnold's 
prose  and  poetry  is  essentially  the  same,  otherwise 
he  would  be  no  true  poet;  and  the  theology  in 
both  is  extraordinarily  warped  and  defective.  My 
task  has  thus  been  somewhat  of  an  ungracious  one. 
To  have  treated  Arnold  from  the  side  of  whole- 
hearted eulogy  would  have  meant  an  incursion 
into  fairyland,  as  in  the  "Forsaken  Merman/1 
or  into  legendary  history,  as  in  "Sohrab  and 
Rustum"  or  "Tristram  and  Iseult." 

THE  AUTHOR. 
s 


CHAPTER  I 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  IN  ARNOLD'S 
TEACHING 

IF  Matthew  Arnold  may  be  termed  the  poet- 
critic  of  England,  then  Goethe,  the  poet-critic  of 
Germany,  is  to  be  regarded  as  his  forerunner  and 
instructor.  Few  thinkers  in  the  whole  record  of 
literature  have  exercised  upon  men  of  light  and 
leading  so  remarkable  an  influence  as  the  German 
Goethe.  In  his  lucid  pages  we  find  expounded 
the  principles  which  are  guiding  our  modern  world, 
as  distinguished  from  the  world  of  mediaevalism 
and  authority  which  preceded  it.  Those  who  read 
at  all  deeply  into  poetry  must  feel  how  great  is  the 
gap  that  divides,  say,  Milton  from  Tennyson,  or 
Pope  from  Arnold.  It  was  the  mission  of  Germany 
to  place  upon  the  most  systematic  basis  the  laws 
which  regulate  our  modern  theories  of  good  and 
bad,  of  the  admirable  and  the  trivial.  Of  all 
thinkers,  Goethe,  with  his  large  mind,  best  under- 
stood the  full  significance  of  the  change;  took  in 
the  final  meaning  of  the  drift  toward  evolution  as 
an  explanation  of  things,  and  weighed  all  human 
matters  in  a  critical  balance. 

Arnold's  very  apposite  and  weighty  verses  on 

7 


8  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Goethe  I  will  deal  with  later.  That  he  early  came 
under  the  spell  of  the  sage  of  Weimar  is  apparent 
to  all  acquainted  with  his  life  story.  We  find 
him  constantly  making  such  references  as  this  in 
his  Letters:  "I  read  his  [Goethe's]  letters,  Bacon, 
Pindar,  Sophocles,  Milton,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  and 
Ecclesiasticus;"  and  in  his  "Note-Book"  Goethe's 
name  once  and  again  recurs.  For  instance,  in 
the  year  1878,  he  quotes  Kestner  on  Goethe 
at  twenty-four:  "Vor  der  Christlichen  Religion 
hat  er  Hochachtung,  nicht  aber  in  der  Gestalt  wie 
sie  unsere  Theologen  vorstellen"  ("While  highly 
esteeming  the  Christian  religion,  it  was  not  in  the 
way  our  theologians  conceive  it").  Goethe  has 
been  called  a  modern  pagan,  and  his  conception 
of  Christianity  was  certainly  very  far  from  the 
orthodox  or  evangelical  conception.  It  does  not 
seem  that  Arnold  ever  broke  away  from  his  spell 
as  Tennyson  did. 

Practically,  Tennyson's  "In  Memoriam"  owes 
its  existence  to  the  break  he  had  to  make 
with  Goethe's  ideals  of  self-culture  and  perfection; 
but  Arnold  never  came  to  the  forking  of  the  roads. 
It  is  no  use  attempting  to  place  that  great  Chris- 
tian apologetic,  "In  Memoriam,"  side  by  side  with 
Arnold's  poems,  as  if  the  final  teaching  were  the 
same.  Arnold  remains  in  the  lucidity  or  self- 
culture  fold  from  which  Tennyson  departed  per- 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT       9 

force,  never  to  return.  Arnold  always  regarded 
the  poet-laureate  as  not  much  of  a  philosopher, 
but  rather  as  a  builder  of  words  into  sonorous 
phrases;  the  judgment,  not  of  a  jealous  contem- 
porary, but  of  an  honest  friend  who  saw  things 
differently.  Others,  and  I  think  rightly,  rate 
Tennyson  very  high  as  a  profound  thinker. 

Turn  to  the  first  section  of  "In  Memoriam," 
immediately  following  the  great  invocation : 

I  held  it  truth,  with  him  who  sings 
To  one  clear  harp  in  divers  tones, 
That  men  may  rise  on  stepping-stones 

Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things. 

This  word  "clear"  denotes  the  lucidity  so  dear 
to  lovers  of  classical  literature,  the  characteristic 
of  the  best  spirits  of  the  pagan  world.  So  Milton 
uses  it: 

Fame  is  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise — 

That  last  infirmity  of  noble  mind — 

To  scorn  delights,  and  live  laborious  days. 

Tennyson  had  this  ideal  before  him  when  Ar- 
thur Hallam  died;  and  the  bitter  experience  made 
him  root  his  faith  deeper.  But  no  crisis  came 
in  Arnold's  life  such  as  might  test  his  spirit  to  its 
depths;  he  always  remained  essentially  a  fair- 
weather  vessel,  never  venturing  into  the  deeps 
where  storms  are  raging,  nor  did  any  chance 
tempest  strike  him.  To  the  end  he  appears 
lacking  in  finally  rigorous  logic  and  thoroughness 


io  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

of  thought,  and  in  moral  grasp  and  conviction  of 
an  overmastering  kind. 

Goethe  purposely  kept  away  from  stormy 
waters.  If  we  take  his  "Rule  of  Life,"  composed 
in  1815  and  afterward  expanded,  as  expounding 
his  principles,  we  have  exactly  such  a  philosophy 
as  might  please  and  charm  a  thoughtful  man 
except  when  he  was  fathoming  the  depths  of 
despair: 

If  thou  wouldst  live  unruffled  by  care, 
Let  not  the  past  torment  thee  e'er; 
If  any  loss  thou  hast  to  rue, 
Act  as  though  thou  wert  born  anew; 
Inquire  the  meaning  of  each  day, 
What  each  day  means  itself  will  say: 
In  thine  own  actions  take  thy  pleasure, 
What  others  do  thou'lt  duly  treasure. 
Ne'er  let  thy  breast  with  hate  be  supplied, 
And  to  God  the  future  confide. 

This  "clearness"  is  the  goal  sought  after  by 
Matthew  Arnold.  In  the  poem  which  contains 
an  exposition  of  his  philosophy,  "A  Summer 
Night,"  there  is  a  closing  invocation  to  clearness: 

Plainness  and  clearness  without  shadow  of  stain, 

Clearness  divine! 

Ye  heavens,  whose  pure  dark  regions  have  no  sign 

Of  languor,  though  so  calm,  and  though  so  great 

Are  yet  untroubled  and  unpassionate ; 

Who,  though  so  noble,  share  in  the  world's  toil, 

And,  though  so  tasked,  keep  free  from  dust  and  soil! 

I  will  not  say  that  your  mild  deeps  retain 

A  tinge,  it  may  be,  of  their  silent  pain 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  n 

Who  have  longed  deeply  once,  and  longed  in  vain — 

But  I  will  rather  say  that  you  remain 

A  world  above  man's  head,  to  let  him  see 

How  boundless  might  his  soul's  horizons  be, 

How  vast,  yet  of  what  clear  transparencyl 

How  prophetic  was  Milton  in  declaring  that 
the  " clear  spirit"  had  infirmities  of  its  own!  a 
love  of  distinction,  a  proud  acceptance,  if  need  be, 
of  isolation.  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  confessed  that 
he  had  a  weakness  to  be  either  Caesar  or  nobody; 
proudly  to  assert  himself  or  as  proudly  efface 
himself.  This  temper  descended  to  his  gifted  son. 
A  recent  commentator,  Professor  Saintsbury,  in 
estimating  highly  the  poetic  quality  of  this  poem 
from  which  I  have  just  quoted,  questions  whether 
the  vague  life-philosophy  of  Arnold  expounded 
here  and  elsewhere — which,  out  of  a  melancholy 
agnosticism,  with  a  quantum  of  asceticism,  erected 
a  creed — was  "anything  more  than  a  not- 
ungraceful  will-worship  of  pride."  It  is  the 
haughty  stoicism  that  the  world  has  rejected. 
Very  disappointing  is  it  to  find  Arnold  bidding 
farewell  to  a  beloved  son,  who  died  in  the  first 
flush  of  manhood,  not  in  the  words  of  hope  given 
to  us  by  revelation,  but  in  the  phraseology  of  a 
heathen  poet.  "How  fond  you  were  of  him,"  he 
wrote  to  the  lad's  grandmother,  "and  how  I  like 
to  recall  this!  He  looks  beautiful,  and  my  main 
feeling  about  him  is,  I  am  glad  to  say,  what  I 


12  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

have  put  in  one  of  my  poems,  the  'Fragment 
of  Dejaneira': 

"But  him  on  whom,  in  the  prime 
Of  life,  with  vigor  undimmed, 
With  unspent  mind,  and  a  soul 
Unworn,  undebased,  undecayed, 
Mournfully  grating,  the  gates 
Of  the  city  of  death  have  forever  closed — 
Him,  I  count  him,  well-starred." 

There  is  no  hope  born  of  the  new  life  of  the 
soul  that  continues  after  death.  With  Goethe 
and  with  Arnold  the  injunction,  "Ye  must  be 
born  again,"  meant  simply  the  attainment  of 
increased  perfection  in  this  present  life.  "Which 
religion,"  asks  Arnold  in  his  "Progress," 

Which  has  not  taught  weak  wills  how  much  they  can  ? 

Which  has  not  fall'n  on  the  dry  heart  like  rain? 
Which  has  not  cried  to  sunk,  self- weary  man: 
Thou  must  be  born  again/ 

Surely  none  except  the  religion  of  Jesus,  who 
hath  abolished  death  and  brought  life  and 
immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel.  Arnold, 
the  lover  of  lucidity,  has  estimated  the  German 
poet  in  lines  of  singular  appositeness: 

When  Goethe's  death  was  told,  we  said: 
Sunk,  then,  is  Europe's  sagest  head. 
Physician  of  the  iron  age, 
Goethe  has  done  his  pilgrimage. 
He  took  the  suffering  human  race, 

He  read  each  wound,  each  weakness  clear, 
And  struck  his  finger  on  the  place, 

And  said :  Thou  ailest  here,  and  here! 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  13 

He  looked  on  Europe's  dying  hour 

Of  fitful  dream  and  feverish  power;  ^* 

His  eye  plunged  down  the  weltering  strife — 

The  turmoil  of  expiring  life — 

He  said:  The  end  is  everywhere, 

Art  still  has  truth,  take  refuge  there! 

And  he  was  happy,  if  to  know 

Causes  of  things,  and  far  below 

His  feet  to  see  the  lurid  flow 

Of  terror,  and  insane  distress, 

And  headlong  fate,  be  happiness! 

In  these  lines  Arnold  ascribes  to  Goethe  the 
preeminent  quality  of  lucidity:  Felix  qui  potuit 
rerum  cognoscere  causas.  Skillful  diagnosis,  phil- 
osophical insight  into  the  workings  of  the  world — 
these  qualities  characterized  him.  But  there  he 
stops.  If  this  can  constitute  happiness,  then,  says 
Arnold,  Goethe  had  happiness;  suggesting,  how- 
ever, at  the  same  time,  that  this  insight  does 
not  bring  happiness.  In  the  agonized  prayer 
of  his  own  Stagirius: 

When  the  soul,  growing  clearer, 
Sees  God  no  nearer; 
When  the  soul,  mounting  higher, 
To  God  comes  no  nigher; 
But  the  arch-fiend  Pride 
Mounts  at  her  side, 
Foiling  her  high  emprise, 
Sealing  her  eagle  eyes,     .     .     . 
Save,  O!  save. 

From  the  serene  height  of  his  own  elevation, 
borne  along  in  the  current  of  an  age  that  was  fuU 


14  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

of  lifiMind  enthusiasm,  the  sage  of  Weimar  never 
lost  rS  buoyancy  of  temperament.  His  pupils, 
however,  with  less  vitality  and  poorer  nerves, 
found  that  his  rule  of  life  led  to  no  such  equable 
contemplation  of  life.  Goethe's  optimism  was  tem- 
peramental andlaccidental,  rather  than  inherent 
in  his  philosophy  of  life. 

In  two  respects  may  Goethe's  teaching  be 
pronounced  unsatisfactory.  His  ideal  of  woman 
is  not  lofty  enough;  and  the  defect  may  in  a 
measure  be  ascribed  to  a  certain  deliberate 
resolve  on  his  own  part  never  to  risk  shipwreck 
of  fortune  for  a  mere  amatory  passion.  In 
Goethe's  love  affairs  we  fail  to  discover  that 
ideal  condition  of  things  described  by  Tennyson, 
in  which 

Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life,  and  smote  on  all  the  chords 

with  might; 
Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling,  passed  in  music 

out  of  sight. 

The  realization  of  perfection,  so  far  as  it  can 
be  obtained  here,  was  his  ideal — a  pagan  rather 
than  a  Christian  conception.  This  threw  him 
back  on  self,  where  a  more  ideal  spirit  would  have 
risked  the  earthly  shipwreck  of  self.  For  in- 
stance, in  his  love  affair  with  Frederika  there  is 
undoubtedly  an  element  of  unsatisfactoriness  in 
the  cool  way  in  which  he  left  her  just  when  the 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  15 

claims  of  his  own  personality  seemed  to  demand 
the  severance  of  their  relations.  "He  sighed  as  a 
lover,  he  obeyed  as  a  man  of  the  world" — to  parody 
a  saying  of  Gibbon's.  This  element  of  intellec- 
tual coldness,  visible  here  and  elsewhere  in  the 
story  of  Goethe's  life,  kept  him  indifferent  on  the 
subject  of  immortality.  He  believed  that  a  few 
of  the  stronger  and  more  select  spirits  might  win 
immortality;  but  the  question  did  not  trouble  him 
deeply.  Now,  immortality  is  a  matter  that  cannot 
be  solved  entirely  in  terms  of  the  reason;  it  is 
largely  a  question  of  the  affections,  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  term.  With  Plato,  the  eternal  was 
symbolized  by  the  heavenly  Aphrodite,  frequently 
referred  to  by  Tennyson  in  "In  Memoriam"  as 
the  "high  Muse,"  or  Urania.  Goethe  had  wor- 
shiped the  earthly  Aphrodite  in  but  a  half- 
hearted fashion,  and  how  could  it  be  expected  that 
her  heavenly  sister  would  reveal  herself  to  him  ? 
"He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom  he  hath 
seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not 
seen?"  Goethe's  teaching  was  found  lacking 
by  Tennyson  when  he  stood  by  the  recent  grave 
of  his  dearly  loved  friend.  On  one  occasion  Ten- 
nyson and  his  friend  Edward  Fitzgerald  were 
gazing  at  the  busts  of  Dante  and  Goethe  in  a  shop 
window  in  Regent  Street,  London.  "What," 
asked  Fitzgerald,  "is  there  wanting  in  Goethe 


1 6  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

which  the  other  has?"  "The  Divine,"  replied 
the  poet-laureate. 

In  this  rarefied  atmosphere  Arnold's  notes 
are  thin  and  unsatisfying.  He  devotes  a  lyric 
to  Urania,  but  she  figures  as  a  disdainful  goddess. 
Plato  speaks  of  Urania  in  his  Symposium,  where 
she  represents  heavenly  love  as  distinguished  from 
mere  earthly  love.  Milton  confides  himself  to 
the  guidance  of  Urania  in  one  of  his  most  impas- 
sioned passages: 

Up  led  by  thee 

Into  the  heaven  of  heavens  I  have  presumed, 
An  earthly  guest,  and  drawn  empyreal  air, 
Thy  tempering;  with  like  safety  guided  down, 
Return  me  to  my  native  element   .... 
Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  pole, 
More  safe  I  sing  with  mortal  voice,  unchanged 
To  hoarse  or  mute,  though  fall'n  on  evil  days, 
On  evil  days  though  fall'n,  and  evil  tongues; 
In  darkness,  and  with  dangers  compassed  round, 
And  solitude;  yet  not  alone,  while  thou 
Visit' st  my  slumbers  nightly,  or  when  morn 
Purples  the  east;  still  govern  thou  my  song, 
Urania,  and  fit  audience  find,  though  few. 

With  that  timid  reverence  with  which  he  ap- 
proached sacred  things,  Tennyson  introduces 
Urania  as  reproving  his  boldness  in  entering  upon 
the  domain  of  religion : 

Urania  speaks  with  darkened  brow: 

"Thou  pratest  here  where  thou  art  least' 
This  faith  has  many  a  purer  priest, 

And  many  an  abler  voice  than  thou. 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  17 

But  later  on  in  "In  Memoriam"  the  heavenly 
visitor  speaks  more  encouragingly,  as  if  touched 
with  love  and  sympathy  for  his  sorrow: 

The  high  Muse  answered:  "Wherefore  grieve 

Thy  brethren  with  a  fruitless  tear? 

Abide  a  little  longer  here, 
And  thou  shalt  take  a  nobler  leave." 

But  Arnold's  Urania,  or  Heavenly  Wisdom,  is 
not  an  approachable  personage,  who  stoops  to 
soothe  and  bless  ordinary  mortals.  She  reserves 
all  her  smiles  for  some  selecter  being,  better 
worthy  of  her  favors: 

Eagerly  once  her  gracious  ken 

.s  turned  upon  the  sons  of  men; 
But  light  the  serious  visage  grew — 
She  looked,  and  smiled,  and  saw  them  through. 

If  she  had  only  "seen  them  through"  in  the 
modern  slang  sense,  as  a  helper  and  a  kind  friend, 
no  one  would  have  complained;  but  hers  was  a 
mere  critical  inspection  that  revealed  their  flaws: 

Our  petty  souls,  our  strutting  wits, 
Our  labored,  puny  passion-fits — 
Ah,  may  she  scorn  them  still,  till  we 
Scorn  them  as  bitterly  as  shel 
Yet  show  her  once,  ye  heavenly  Powers, 
One  of  some  worthier  race  than  ours! 
One  for  whose  sake  she  once  might  prove 
How  deeply  she  who  scorns  can  love. 

And  she  to  him  will  reach  her  hand, 
And  gazing  in  his  eyes  will  stand, 
And  know  her  friend,  and  weep  for  glee, 
And  cry:  "Long,  long  I've  looked  for  thee." 


18  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Then  will  she  weep:  with  smiles,  till  then, 
Coldly  she  mocks  the  sons  of  men; 
Till  then,  her  lovely  eyes  maintain 
Their  pure,  unwavering,  deep  disdain. 

This  word  " disdain,"  not  a  pleasant  word, 
occurs  in  another  of  Arnold's  lyrics — one  of  his 
finest — the  "Obermann  Once  More."  He  is  paint- 
ing the  meeting  of  triumphant,  stern  Rome  with 
the  grave  Orient : 

The  brooding  East  with  awe  beheld 

Her  impious  younger  world. 
The  Roman  tempest  swelled  and  swelled, 

And  on  her  head  was  hurled. 

The  East  bowed  low  before  the  blast 

In  patient,  deep  disdain; 
She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 

And  plunged  in  thought  again. 

So  well  she  mused,  a  morning  broke 

Across  her  spirit  gray, 
A  conquering,  newborn  joy  awoke, 

And  filled  her  life  with  day. 

"Poor  world,"  she  cried,  "so  deep  accurst! 

That  runn'st  from  pole  to  pole 
To  seek  a  draught  to  slake  thy  thirst — 

Go,  seek  it  in  thy  soul!" 

She  heard  it,  the  victorious  West, 

In  crown  and  sword  arrayed! 
She  felt  the  void  which  mined  her  breast, 

She  shivered  and  obeyed. 

This  is  bad  psychology  and  bad  history.  So  far 
from  "disdaining"  the  might  of  armies,  the 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  19 

Oriental  has  ever  been  prone  to  worship  and 
glorify  Power.  "Disdain"  of  a  dreamer,  on  the 
one  hand,  "shivering"  disillusion  on  the  other, 
do  not  interpret  the  situation.  The  first,  the  Dis- 
dain, must  be  changed  into  warm,  expansive  Love, 
fruitful  in  all  helpful,  patient  deeds,  which  is  more 
powerful  than  armies;  the  second,  the  shivering 
disillusion,  into  the  heartful  recognition  of  this 
fuller  humanity,  the  hearty  acceptance  of  the 
new  life  offered  to  man  by  the  divine  Friend. 

The  master  and  teacher  of  both  Goethe  and 
Arnold  in  their  final  attitude  to  the  physical  world 
was  the  Jewish  philosopher,  Benedict  Spinoza. 
"The  two  things,"  remarks  Arnold  in  his 
"Spinoza  and  the  Bible,"  "which  are  most 
remarkable  about  him  [Spinoza],  and  by  which,  as 
I  think,  he  chiefly  impressed  Goethe,  seem  to  me 
not  to  come  from  his  Hebrew  nature  at  all — I 
mean  his  denial  of  final  causes  and  his  stoicism, 
not  passive,  but  active.  For  a  mind  like  Goethe's 
—a  mind  profoundly  impartial  and  passionately 
aspiring  after  the  science,  not  of  men  only,  but  of 
universal  nature — the  popular  philosophy  which 
explains  all  things  by  reference  to  man  and 
regards  universal  nature  as  existing  for  the  sake 
of  man,  and  even  of  certain  classes  of  men,  was 
utterly  repulsive.  Unchecked,  this  philosophy 
would  gladly  maintain  that  the  donkey  exists  in 


ao  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

order  that  the  invalid  Christian  may  have  donkey's 
milk  before  breakfast;  and  such  views  of  nature 
as  this  were  exactly  what  Goethe's  whole  soul 
abhorred.  Creation,  he  thought,  should  be  made 
of  sterner  stuff;  he  desired  to  rest  the  donkey's 
existence  on  larger  grounds." 

Arnold  then  goes  on  to  quote  some  distinctive 
passages  from  Spinoza's  writings  which  outline 
his  standpoint:  "God  directs  nature  according 
to  the  universal  laws  of  nature,  but  not  according 
as  the  particular  laws  of  human  nature  require; 
and  so  God  has  regard,  not  of  the  human  race 
only,  but  of  entire  nature."  Does  not  this  level  a 
direct  blow  at  the  Puritan  conception  of  God's 
dealings  with  Adam,  Noah,  and  his  chosen 
people  ?  Then  follows  a  statement  revealing 
Spinoza's  stoicism:  "Our  desire  is  not  that 
nature  may  obey  us,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that 
we  may  obey  nature." 

"Here,"  remarks  Arnold,  "is  the  second  source 
of  Spinoza's  attractiveness  for  Goethe,  and  a 
whole  order  of  minds  like  him;  he  first  impresses 
him,  and  then  composes  him.  Filling  and  satisfy- 
ing his  imagination  by  the  width  and  grandeur  of 
his  own  view  of  nature,  the  Jewish  thinker  then 
fortifies  and  stills  his  mobile,  straining,  passionate 
temperament  by  the  moral  lesson  he  draws  from 
his  view  of  nature." 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  21 

In  his  "Saint  Paul  and  Protestantism"  Arnold 
loses  his  complete  sympathy  with  the  man  of 
Tarsus  when  the  latter  "Hebraizes"  and 
"Judaizes";  which  Spinoza  is  careful  not  to  do 
—he  keeps  within  the  field  common  to  philosophy, 
literature,  and  natural  religion.  A  combination  of 
Paul  and  Spinoza  would  have  pleased  Arnold 
entirely.  Spinoza  conceives  of  religious  things  in 
terms  that  are  too  intellectual,  "crowning  the  intel- 
lectual life  with  a  sacred  transport."  Goethe  so 
conceived  of  them  and  so  did  Arnold,  making 
abstractions  out  of  life.  The  close  of  Arnold's 
"Spinoza  and  the  Bible"  is  well  worth  quoting  as 
summing  up  his  final  attitude  toward  this 
modern  Plato,  as  he  calls  him:  "One  may  say 
to  the  wise  and  devout  Christian,  'Spinoza's  con- 
ception of  beatitude  is  not  yours  and  cannot 
satisfy  you,  but  whose  conception  of  beatitude 
would  you  accept  as  satisfying  ?  Not  even  that 
of  the  devoutest  of  your  fellow  Christians.  Fra 
Angelico,  the  sweetest  and  most  inspired  of 
devout  souls,  has  given  us,  in  his  great  picture  of 
the  Last  Judgment,  his  conception  of  beatitude. 
The  elect  are  going  round  in  a  ring  on  long 
grass  under  laden  fruit-trees;  two  of  them,  more 
restless  than  the  others,  are  flying  up  a  battle- 
mented  street — a  street  blank  with  all  the 
ennui  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Across  a  gulf  is  visible, 


22  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

for  the  delectation  of  the  saints,  a  blazing  cal- 
dron in  which  Beelzebub  is  sousing  the  damned. 
This  is  hardly  more  your  conception  of  beatitude 
than  Spinoza's  is.  But  "in  my  Father's  house  are 
many  mansions";  only,  to  reach  any  one  of  these 
mansions,  there  are  needed  the  wings  of  a  genuine 
sacred  transport,  of  an  "immortal  longing."' 
These  wings  Spinoza  had;  and  because  he  had 
them  his  own  language  about  himself,  about  his 
aspirations  and  his  course,  is  true:  his  foot  is  in 
the  vera  vita,  his  eye  on  the  beatific  vision. " 

In  these  closing  passages  in  "Spinoza  and  the 
Bible"  Arnold  speaks  as  if  he  himself  were  dis- 
tinctly in  the  Christian  fold;  where  he  always  was 
by  inclination  and  training,  but  from  which  he 
often  seems  to  draw  aside  by  a  kind  of  intel- 
lectual overscrupulousness.  He  strove  to  realize 
two  visions  that  are  quite  incompatible. 

Another  German  thinker,  a  predecessor  of 
Goethe's,  enters  directly  into  Arnold's  poetry— 
the  Saxon  Lessing.  To  him  Arnold  devotes  a 
poem  which  is  but  little  noticed  or  quoted,  his 
"Epilogue  to  Lessing's  Laocoon."  And  yet  in 
some  respects  the  poem  is  equally  significant  to 
us  with  Browning's  "  Abt  Vogler, "  in  that  it  pro- 
pounds and  answers  a  question  in  the  sphere  of  the 
higher  aesthetics,  where  the  domain  of  aesthetics 
touches  that  of  religion.  Browning  gives  music 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT      23 

a  final  preeminence  over  the  other  arts    because 
it  is  not  subject  to  analysis: 

But  here  is  the  finger  of  God,  a  flash  of  the  will  that 

can, 
Existent  behind  all  laws,  that  made  them,  and  lo! 

they  are. 

Arnold  discusses  in  his  verses  the  question  why 
poetry  so  often  fails  of  its  mission  when  music 
and  art  triumphantly  succeed.  He  never  allows 
it  to  be  doubted  that  poetry  is  the  highest  of  all 
arts;  he  merely  wonders  why  first-rate  poetry  is 
so  rare,  and  tries  to  furnish  a  satisfactory  answer. 

Arnold  is  not  a  devotee  of  music,  as  was  Brown- 
ing, and  is  never  warmed  by  its  inspiration  like 
his  contemporary.  Music,  after  all,  has  but  a 
slight  hold  upon  conduct,  and  is  singularly  unsatis- 
fying on  the  moral  side.  For  Browning's  artistic 
ends  its  symbolic  use  in  "  Abt  Vogler"  is  justified, 
and  is  appropriate;  but,  finally  speaking,  music 
must  rank  below  poetry;  and  Arnold  is  right  in  so 
classing  it. 

To  Arnold,  Lessing  was  no  mean  prophet.  In 
the  story  of  Germany  he  comes  next  after  Luther 
as  an  apostle  of  truth.  While  Luther  was  the 
master  spirit  of  the  great  religious  upheaval  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  Lessing  was  the  chief  light  in 
the  intellectual  revival  of  the  eighteenth,  known 
as  the  period  of  Illuminism.  Arnold  was  not 


24  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

exceedingly  fond  of  Luther,  whose  frequent  lack 
of  "dignity  and  distinction"  displeased  the  fas- 
tidious Englishman.  Even  as  a  final  exponent  of 
God's  eternal  truths  he  has  declared  that  Luther 
was  equaled  or  surpassed  by  the  old  Greeks;  and 
his  Gemiinbeitj  or  commonness,  prepared  the 
way  for  no  outburst  of  literature  to  elevate  human- 
ity. The  two  hundred  years  of  German  life  after 
Luther's  death,  save  for  a  few  inspired  hymns, 
are  almost  barren  of  any  literary  production  of 
value. 

But  Lessing's  mission  was  fruitful  in  results. 
When  poetry  was  regarded  as  something  merely 
didactic  or  fanciful,  he  asserted  for  it  a  high  and 
dignified  role  as  a  final  interpreter  of  life.  Before 
Lessing's  time  the  critical  world  was  in  a  misty 
fog  of  verbiage  and  mere  tradition,  but  with  his 
labors  we  get  into  "the  bright  and  populous 
thoroughfare  of  human  life  which  binds  the 
ages  together."  Yet  Lessing  left  one  question 
unanswered  which  supplies  material  for  Arnold's 
poem: 

"Ah, "  cries  my  friend,  '  'but  who  hath  taught 
Why  music  and  the  other  arts 
Oftener  perform  aright  their  parts 
Than  poetry?  why  she,  than  they, 
Fewer  fine  successes  can  display?" 

In  reply  Arnold  admits  that  Pausanias  found, 
when  traveling  in  Greece — the  highly  gifted  land — 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT      25 

that  good  poems  were  rarer  than  good  statues. 
In  mediaeval  Italy,  which  produced  Dante,  Tasso, 
Petrarch,  and  Ariosto,  painting  seemed  to  lead 
the  way  with  Raphael  and  his  brotherhood: 

And  nobly  perfect,  in  our  day 
Of  haste,  half-work,  and  disarray, 
Profound  yet  touching,  sweet  yet  strong, 
Hath  risen  Goethe's,  Wordsworth's  song; 
Yet  even  I  (and  none  will  bow 
Deeper  to  these)  must  needs  allow, 
They  yield  us  not,  to  soothe  our  pains, 
Such  multitude  of  heavenly  strains 
As  from  the  kings  of  sound  are  blown — 
Mozart,  Beethoven,  Mendelssohn. 

As  his  friend  and  he  passed  along  through  Hyde 
Park  in  London  (where  the  conversation  is  repre- 
sented as  having  occurred)  they  looked  upon  the 
green  grass,  the  bright  elm  trees,  the  restful  kine: 

"Behold,"  I  said,  "the  painter's  sphere! 
The  limits  of  his  art  appear. 
The  passing  group,  the  summer  morn, 
The  grass,  the  elms,  that  blossomed  thorn — 
Those  cattle  couched,  or,  as  they  rise, 
Their  shining  flanks,  their  liquid  eyes — 
These,  or  much  greater  things,  but  caught 
Like  these,  and  in  one  aspect  brought! 
In  outward  semblance  he  must  give 
A  moment's  life  of  things  that  live; 
Then  let  him  choose  his  moment  well, 
With  power  divine  its  story  tell." 

Their  walk  brings  them  in  sight  of  Westmin- 
ster Abbey,  and  the  rustling  breeze  seems  to 


26  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

whisper  to  their  ears  the  charmed  tones  of  sacred 
music: 

' '  Miserere,  Dominef ' ' 

The  words  are  uttered,  and  they  flee. 

Deep  is  their  penitential  moan, 

Mighty  their  pathos,  but  'tis  gone. 

They  have  declared  the  spirit's  sore, 

Sore  load,  and  words  can  do  no  more. 

Beethoven  takes  them  then — these    two 

Poor,  bounded  words — and  makes  them  new; 

Infinite  makes  them,  makes  them  young; 

Transplants  them  to  another  tongue, 

Where  they  can  now,  without  constraint, 

Pour  all  the  soul  of  their  complaint, 

And  roll  adown  a  channel  large 

The  wealth  divine  they  have  in  charge. 

Page  after  page  of  music  turn, 

And  still  they  live,  and  still  they  burn, 

Eternal,  passion-fraught,  and  free — 

' '  Miserere,  Domine  I ' ' 

So  much  for  the  mission  of  music.  The  scene 
then  changes  to  the  busy  throng  of  Rotten  Row, 
and  the  two  inquirers  gaze  upon  humanity  in 
movement: 

The  young,  the  happy,  and  the  fair, 

The  old,  the  sad,  the  worn,  were  there; 

Some  vacant  and  some  musing  went, 

And  some  in  talk  and  merriment. 

Nods,  smiles,  and  greetings,  and  farewells! 

And  now  and  then,  perhaps,  there  swells 

A  sigh,  a  tear — but  in  the  throng 

All  changes  fast,  and  hies  along. 

Hies,  ah!  from  whence,  what  native  ground? 

And  to  what  goal,  what  ending,  bound? 

"Behold  at  last  the  poet's  sphere! 

But  who,"  I  said,  "suffices  here?" 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT  27 

The  question  as  propounded  by  Arnold  would 
seem  to  demand  an  answer  in  terms  of  religion; 
but  he  limits  himself  wholly  to  the  domain  of  art, 
and  replies  as  a  pure  humanist.  The  task  he 
speaks  of  is  not  one  for  the  moralist,  but  for 
the  supreme  artist — the  gifted  personage  who 
can  reveal  to  his  audience  not  only  the  aspect 
of  the  moment,  like  a  painter,  and  the  feeling  of 
the  moment,  like  the  musician,  but  also  life's 
movement: 

The  movement  he  must  tell  of  life, 
Its  pain  and  pleasure,  rest  and  strife; 
His  eye  must  travel  down,  at  full, 
The  long,  unpausing  spectacle; 
With  faithful,  unrelaxing  force 
Attend  it  from  its  primal  source, 
From  change  to  change  and  year  to  year 
Attend  it  of  its  mid-career, 
Attend  it  to  the  last  repose 
And  solemn  silence  of  its  close. 


According  to  Arnold,  most  poets  who  apply  them- 
selves to  this  task  of  mirroring  life — how  fond  he 
is  of  that  word  "mirror"! — are  ill  endowed  for 
the  task,  and  some  show  feebleness  and  intellec- 
tual embarrassment.  All  they  get  out  of  life's 
majestic  river  is  a  momentary  gleam,  and  they 
give  us  mere  snatches  of  song. 

There  are,  however,  two  figures  which  tower 
above  the  rest  of  the  crowd  and  speak  with  power 


28  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

and    pathos  far  surpassing  the  message  of  any 
painter  or  musician: 

Beethoven,  Raphael,  cannot  reach 

The  charm  which  Homer,  Shakespeare,  teach. 

To  these,  to  these,  their  thankful  race 

Gives,  then,  the  first,  the  fairest  place; 

And  brightest  is  their  glory's  sheen, 

For  greatest  hath  their  labor  been. 

Arnold  here  seems  to  speak  the  language  of 
exaggeration,  and  to  place  Homer  and  Shakespeare 
upon  an  undeserved  pinnacle.  It  must  be 
jremembered  that  Shakespeare  was  dumb  on 
one  deep  and  essential  topic,  that  of  religion. 
He  is  a  pure  humanist,  and  in  certain  essential 
respects  limits  the  scope  of  his  inquiries  into  the 
meaning  and  drift  of  life.  He  can  hardly  be  said 
to  have  given  us  a  hero;  and  to  speak  of  his  breath- 
ing "immortal  air" — an  expression  Arnold  makes 
use  of  in  another  passage — is  to  employ  more  than 
equivocal  language: 

Deeply  the  poet  feels;  but  he 
Breathes,  when  he  will,  immortal  air, 
Where  Orpheus  and  where  Homer  are. 


The  poet,  he  declares    in    "Resignation,"    is 
'more  than  man": 


In  the  day's  life,  whose  iron  round 
Hems  us  all  in,  he  is  not  bound; 
He  leaves  his  kind,  o'erleaps  their  pen, 
And  flees  the  common  life  of  men. 


MODERN  GERMAN  THOUGHT      29 

And  yet,  notwithstanding  his  almost  idolatrous 
sonnet  to  Shakespeare,  Arnold  reckoned  him  lower 
than  his  idolized  Homer;  the  modern  poet  was  as 
imperfection  to  perfection.  Here  is  the  sonnet: 

SHAKESPEARE 

Others  abide  our  question.     Thou  art  free. 
We  ask  and  ask.     Thou  smilest  and  art  still, 
Out-topping  knowledge.     For  the  loftiest  hill, 

Who  to  the  stars  uncrowns  his  majesty, 

Planting  his  steadfast  footsteps  in  the  sea, 

Making  the  heaven  of  heavens  his  dwelling-place, 
Spares  but  the  cloudy  border  of  his  base 

To  the  foiled  searcher  of  mortality; 

And  thou,  who  didst  the  stars  and  sunbeams  know, 

Self-schooled,  self-scanned,  self-honored,  self-secure, 
Didst  tread  on  earth  unguessed  at. — Better  so! 

All  pains  the  immortal  spirit  must  endure, 
All  weakness  which  impairs,  all  griefs  which  bow, 
Find  their  sole  speech  in  that  victorious  brow. 

This  language  implies  a  deification  of  humanity 
after  the  fashion  of  Auguste  Comte.  It  is  modern 
llluminism  in  its  antichristian  aspect,  demanding 
a  new  definition  for  the  terms  "immortal"  and 
"immortality"  such  as  is  accorded  them  by  mod- 
ern savants.  When  they  bid  an  eternal  farewell 
to  dead  friends,  beside  graves  unblest  by  Chris- 
tian rites  that  bespeak  the  Christian  hope  of 
immortality,  their  panegyrics  contain  aspirations 
after  this  mundane  form  of  immortality.  It  may 
be  defined  from  this  "Epilogue  to  Lessing's 


30  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Laocoon"  as  the  power  to  charm  humanity  for- 
ever: 

They  speak !   the  happiness  divine 
They  feel  runs  o'er  in  every  line; 
Its  spell  is  round  them  like  a  shower — 
It  gives  them  pathos,  gives  them  power. 
No  painter  yet  hath  such  a  way, 
Nor  no  musician  made,  as  they, 
And  gathered  on  immortal  knolls 
Such  lovely  flowers  for  cheering  souls. 

If  the  words  "immortal"  and  "divine"  are 
keywords  to  the  interpretation  of  the  essence  of 
Christ's  message  to  man,  then  they  are  used  here 
with  a  significance  that  is  entirely  neopagan  and 
useless  for  theology. 


CHAPTER  II 

ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD  loved  France  and  French- 
men. The  fair  mistress  to  whom  are  addressed 
his  early  love  lays  was  Marguerite,  a  Swiss  maiden 
who  spoke  the  soft,  smooth  accents  of  the  people 
dwelling  by  the  Seine.  His  "A  Memory-Picture" 
is  laid  in  Switzerland;  so  is  his  "Dream": 

We  shot  beneath  the  cottage  with  the  stream. 
On  the  brown,  rude-carved  balcony,  two  forms 
Came  forth — Olivia's,  Marguerite!  and  thine. 
Clad  were  they  both  in  white,  flowers  in  their  breast; 
Straw  hats  bedecked  their  heads,  with  ribbons  blue, 
Which  danced,  and  on  their  shoulders,  fluttering, 

played. 

They  saw  us,  they  conferred ;  their  bosoms  heaved, 
And  more  than  mortal  impulse  filled  their  eyes. 
Their  lips  moved;  their  white  arms,  waved  eagerly, 
Flashed  once,  like  falling  streams;  we  rose,  we  gazed; 
One  moment,  on  the  rapid's  top,  our  boat 
Hung  poised — and  then  the  darting  river  of  Life 
(Such  now,  methought,  it  was),  the  river  of  Life, 
Loud  thundering,  bore  us  by;  swift,  swift  it  foamed, 
Black  under  cliffs  it  raced,  round  headlands  shone. 
Soon  the  planked  cottage  'mid  the  sun-warmed  pines 
Faded — the  moss — the  rocks;  us  burning  plains, 
Bristled  with  cities — us  the  sea  received. 

Here  is  his    old-world    conception    of    the    sea 
as  something  cruel  and  ingulfing  which  separates 

31 


32  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

mortals  and  keeps  them  apart.  "Time's  barren, 
stormy  flow"  he  calls  it  in  another  of  the  Mar- 
guerite poems,  which  contains  two  of  his  finest 
quatrains : 

This  is  the  curse  of  life !  that  not 

A  nobler,  calmer  train 
Of  wiser  thoughts  and  feelings  blot 

Our  passions  from  our  brain. 

But  each  day  brings  its  petty  dust 

Our  soon-choked  souls  to  fill, 
And  we  forget  because  we  must, 

And  not  because  we  will. 

But  yet,  interesting  as  are  the  Marguerite  poems 
to  readers  of  Arnold,  Switzerland  and  the  way 
thither  through  sunny  France  are  less  associated 
with  them  than  with  the  Obermann  poems.  Ober- 
mann  was  a  philosopher  with  a  certain  outlook 
on  life  which  fascinated  Arnold.  There  is  an 
element  of  gay  capriciousness  in  Arnold's  whole 
life  and  method  which  makes  us  feel  that  he  cer- 
tainly saw  life  vividly,  yet  he  failed  to  "see  life 
steadily  and  see  it  whole."  When  he  visited  the 
Grande  Chartreuse, 

Through  Alpine  meadows  soft-suffused 
With  rain,  where  thick  the  crocus  blows, 

and  felt  its  "gloom  profound";  and,  among  Alpine 
peaks, 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT    33 

Watched  the  rosy  light 
Fade  from  the  distant  peaks  of  snow; 
And  on  the  air  of  night 

Heard  accents  of  the  eternal  tongue 
Through  the  pine  branches  play — 

he  was  under  the  spell  of  this  skeptical,  melan- 
choly Obermann,  who  inhabited  a  mountain 
chalet  in  these  retired  haunts.  A  casual  reader 
of  his  pages  would  suppose  that  Senancour,  the 
creator  of  "Obermann,"  was  a  representative 
Frenchman  of  the  period,  whose  musings  upon 
life  and  destiny  satisfied  the  intellectual  cravings 
of  the  time.  But  this  is  not  the  case,  notwith- 
standing George  Sand's  rhetoric.  Sainte-Beuve, 
the  great  French  critic,  for  whom  Arnold  had 
an  unbounded  respect,  discusses  at  length,  in  the 
numerous  volumes  of  his  Causeries  de  Lundi, 
literary  personages  and  literary  influences,  yet  he 
refers  only  twice  to  the  author  of  "Obermann." 
In  each  case  it  is  to  contrast  him,  and  not  over- 
favorably,  with  some  other  nature-lover.  In 
his  detailed  account  of  Topffer,  for  instance,  a 
highly  accomplished  writer  who  died  in  his  prime, 
in  1846,  when  fame  was  just  coming  to  him,  Sainte- 
Beuve  quotes  his  description  of  the  valley  of  Cer- 
vin,  remarking  on  the  magnificent  sweep  and 
exactness  of  the  passage.  I  translate  the  closing 
half:  "Lower  down  productiveness,  change, 

3 


34  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

renewal  surround  us;  the  active  and  fruitful  soil 
clothes  itself  eternally  with  raiment  or  with  flowers, 
and  God  seems  to  bring  his  hand  near  to  us  that 
we  may  take  from  it  the  food  of  summer  and  the 
provisions  of  winter.  But  here,  where  that  hand 
seems  to  be  withdrawn,  deep  down  in  the  heart  we 
experience  new  impressions  of  abandonment 
and  terror;  we  recognize  in  its  nakedness,  so  to 
speak,  the  utter  weakness  of  man,  his  speedy 
and  final  destruction,  if,  but  for  an  instant,  the 
divine  goodness  failed  to  surround  him  with  tender 
cares  and  infinite  succors.  Mute  but  powerful 
poetry,  which,  from  the  very  fact  that  it  turns  the 
thought  toward  the  grand  mysteries  of  creation, 
seizes  the  soul  and  uplifts  it !  So,  while  the  habitual 
spectacle  of  the  divine  bounty  is  apt  to  make  us 
forget  God,  the  chance  spectacle  of  immense 
sterilities,  of  gloomy  deserts,  of  regions  without 
life,  without  succor,  without  bounties,  draws  us 
Godward  by  a  lively  feeling  of  gratitude;  so  that 
more  than  one  man  who  forgot  God  in  the  plains 
has  remembered  him  among  the  mountains. "  At 
such  times,  says  Sainte-Beuve,  TopfFer's  reflec- 
tions carry  us  back  to  the  awful  glory  of  ancient 
Sinai,  the  descriptions  of  the  prophets,  and  all 
that  appeals  to  man  in  biblical  story;  while  "the 
same  spectacle  raises  far  other  thoughts  in  the 
minds  of  men  like  Senancour,  another  famous 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT    35 

nature-lover;  they  see  therein  only  the  culmination 
and  underlying  witness  of  blind  forces,  and,  even 
when  most  admiring,  get  nothing  out  of  it  but 
sadness,  horror,  and  desolation."  He  also  con- 
trasts Senancour's  attitude  elsewhere  with  that  of 
a  lover  of  nature's  moods,  like  Ramond,  who  was 
at  once  geologist,  botanist,  and  physicist.  Where 
Senancour  merely  gets  a  new  ecstatic  thrill  which 
leaves  behind  a  sensation  of  blankness,  Ramond 
finds  something  to  call  forth  admiration  and 
enthusiasm.  Sainte-Beuve  seems  to  have  pre- 
ferred Arnold's  interpretation  of  Obermann  to  the 
original,  for  he  translated  the  English  poet's  verses 
into  excellent  French  equivalents. 

In  his  first  set  of  "Stanzas  in  Memory  of  the 
Author  of  Obermann"  Arnold  compares  the 
Frenchman's  teaching  with  that  of  Wordsworth 
and  of  Goethe: 

Yet,  of  the  spirits  who  have  reigned 

In  this  our  troubled  day, 
I  know  but  two  who  have  attained, 

Save  thee,  to  see  their  way. 

But  Wordsworth's  eyes  avert  their  ken 

From  half  of  human  fate; 
And  Goethe's  course  few  sons  of  men 

May  think  to  emulate. 

Too  fast  we  live,  too  much  are  tried, 

Too  harassed,  to  attain 
Wordsworth's  sweet  calm,  or  Goethe's  wide 

And  luminous  view  to  gain. 


36  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

And  then  we  turn,  thou  sadder  sage, 

To  thee!  we  feel  thy  spell! 
— The  hopeless  tangle  of  our  age, 

Thou  too  hast  scanned  it  well. 

Immovable  thou  sittest,  still 

As  death,  composed  to  bear! 
Thy  head  is  clear,  thy  feeling  chill, 

And  icy  thy  despair. 

Yes,  as  the  son  of  Thetis  said, 

I  hear  thee  saying  now : 
Greater  by  /a>  th  in  thou  are  dead; 

Strive  not!  die  also  thou! 

Away,  the  dreams  that  but  deceive! 

And  thou,  sad  guide,  adieu! 
I  go,  fate  drives  me;  but  I  leave 

Half  of  my  life  with  you. 

We,  in  some  unknown  Power's  employ, 

Move  in  a  rigorous  line ; 
Can  neither,  when  we  will,  enjoy, 

Nor,  when  we  will,  resign. 

This  is  surely  the  philosophy  of  despair  and 
disillusion,  from  which  all  warmth  and  vital 
humanity  has  departed.  Is  this  "seeing  one's 
way"  ?  Better  the  attitude  of  Newman,  with  its 
prayerfulness : 

Keep  thou  my  feet!     I  do  not  ask  to  see 
The  distant  scene;  one  step  enough  for  me. 

There  is  no  prayer  in  Obermann's  attitude;  and 
Arnold's  own  conception  of  prayer  is  thin  and 
faulty:  an  energy  of  aspiration  toward  the  Eter- 
nal Not-ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness. 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT     37 

"Nothing,"  he  remarks,  "can  be  more  efficacious, 
more  right  and  more  real  than  this."  He  quotes 
with  approval  Margaret  Fuller's  words:  "Culti- 
vate the  spirit  of  prayer.  I  do  not  mean  agitation 
and  excitement,  but  a  deep  desire  for  truth,  purity, 
and  goodness." 

Senancour,  the  author  of  "Obermann,"  lived  in 
a  time  of  depression  and  disillusion  among  think- 
ing men  in  France,  when  Napoleon  Bonaparte 
was  riding  roughshod  over  the  prostrate  forms 
of  French  ideologues  and  idealists.  Enthusiasts 
who  had  for  a  time  warmed  to  a  religion  of  human- 
ity felt  their  temperature  grow  cold  and  chill. 

Etienne  Pivert  de  Senancour  was  really  a  belated 
French  philosophe.  Born  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XV,  he  found  himself  a  ruined  man  at  the  Revolu- 
tion; and  for  some  years  he  lived  quietly  in  Switz- 
erland, where  he  married.  His  Obermann  letters, 
which  show  the  sentimental  influence  of  Rousseau, 
were  published  in  the  year  1804,  and  attracted 
considerable  notice  and  admiration.  Obermann 
has  the  philosophic  melancholy  of  a  Hamlet,  a 
Werther,  or  a  Childe  Harold,  and  has  been  com- 
pared with  Goethe's  and  Byron's  heroes  by 
George  Sand,  who  held  the  book  in  high  esteem. 
She  compares  Obermann  to  a  wild  bird  on  the 
cliffs,  deprived  of  the  use  of  his  wings,  who  gazes 
upon  shores  whence  sail  happy  vessels,  and  on 


38  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

which  only  wrecks  are  cast.  It  is  the  old,  unhappy 
view  of  the  ocean  which  the  true  modern  rejects, 
but  to  which  Arnold,  with  his  belated  classical 
leanings,  still  clings.  Every  lover  of  Arnold 
remembers  the  lines  to  Marguerite,  beginning, 

Yes,  in  the  sea  of  life  enisled, 

With  echoing  straits  between  us  thrown, 

Dotting  the  shoreless  watery  wild, 
We  mortals  live  alone, 

and  ending, 

A  God,  a  God  their  severance  ruled! 
And  bade  betwixt  their  souls  to  be 
The  unplumbed,  salt,  estranging  sea. 

To  the  ancient  world  the  sea  meant  warfare, 
trouble,  disaster;  only  God  could  master  it:  "Or 
who,"  says  the  Eternal  to  Job,  "who  shut  up  the 
sea  with  doors,  when  it  brake  forth;  and  said, 
Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  but  no  further:  and 
here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed  ?"  In  the 
same  book  it  is  spoken  of  as  a  raging  monster 
or  dragon;  the  sacred  poet  herein  following  the 
nature  myth  in  which  the  stormy  sea,  assaulting 
the  heavens  with  its  billows,  was  an  embodiment 
of  lawlessness  and  evil,  a  rebel  leading  his  hosts 
against  the  Almighty.  Thus  the  opening  verses  of 
the  forty-sixth  psalm  do  not  refer  to  an  actual 
sea:  "Though  the  waters  thereof  roar  and  be 
troubled,  though  the  mountains  shake  with  the 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT    39 

swelling  thereof."  It  is  the  stormy  maelstrom  of 
the  nation  which  the  psalmist  depicts.  We  have  the 
same  trope  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  the  book 
of  Revelation :  "The  waters  which  thou  sawest, 
where  the  harlot  sitteth,  are  peoples,  and  multi- 
tudes, and  nations,  and  tongues."  And  when  the 
seer  declared  that  "there  shall  be  no  more  sea" 
he  foretold  an  endless  period  of  calm  and  bliss. 

When  they  refer  to  the  sea  Byron  speaks  like 
an  ancient  and  Keats  like  a  modern.  In  an 
impassioned  passage  in  "Fifine  at  the  Fair" 
Browning  throws  contempt  upon  Byron  for  his 
attitude  toward  the  ocean  in  the  celebrated 
apostrophe  in  "Childe  Harold": 

[Thou]  send'st  him,  shivering  in  the  playful  spray 
And  howling,  to  his  gods,  where  haply  lies 
His  petty  hope  in  some  near  port  or  bay, 
And  dashest  him  to  earth  again: — there  let  him  lay. 

Browning  rightly  characterizes  this  as  an  un- 
worthy conception,  expressed  in  blundering  Eng- 
lish. But  Keats  rises  to  the  occasion,  as  a 
true  modern  who  loves  the  ocean,  in  one  of  his 
finest  sonnets: 

Bright  star!  would  I  were  steadfast  as  thou  art. 

Not  in  lone  splendor  hung  aloft  the  night, 
And  watching  with  eternal  lids  apart, 

Like  Nature's  patient  sleepless  Eremite, 
The  moving  waters  at  their  priestlike  task 

Of  pure  ablution  round  earth's  human  shores. 


40  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Oddly  enough,  in  one  of  his  Essays — that  on 
Maurice  de  Guerin — Arnold,  quoting  from  this 
sonnet  of  Keats,  makes  a  serious  and  significant 
blunder.  He  has  been  comparing  religion  with 
science,  to  the  detriment  of  the  latter.  "The 
interpretations  of  science,"  he  declares,  "do  not 
give  us  this  intimate  sense  of  objects  as  the 
interpretations  of  poetry  give  it;  they  appeal  to  a 
limited  faculty,  and  not  to  the  whole  man.  It  is 
not  Linnaeus,  or  Cavendish,  or  Cuvier  who  gives 
us  the  true  sense  of  animals,  or  water,  or  plants, 
who  seizes  their  secret  for  us,  who  makes  us  par- 
ticipate in  their  life;  it  is  Shakespeare,  with  his 

daffodils 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty; 

it  is  Wordsworth,  with  his 

voice    .     .    .    heard 
In  springtime  from  the  cuckoo-bird, 
Breaking  the  silence  of  the  seas 
Among  the  farthest  Hebrides ; 

it  is  Keats,  with  his 

moving  waters  at  their  priestlike  task 
Of  cold  [sic!]  ablution  round  earth's  human  shores; 

it  is  Chateaubriand,  with  his  cime  in  d tier  mine* e 
des  forSts;  it  is  Senancour,  with  his  mountain  birch- 
tree:  Cette  Scarce  blanche,  lisse  et  crevassde;  cette 


ARNOLD  AND^FRENCH  THOUGHT  41 

tige  agreste;  ces  branches  qui  s'inclinent  vers  la 
terre;  la  mobilitt  des  feuilles,  et  tout  cet  abandon , 
simplicity  de  la  nature,  attitude  des  deserts. " 

The  blundering  substitution  of  "cold"  for 
"pure"  makes  a  vital  difference  in  the  whole  con- 
ception. With  the  phraseology  of  Keats  both 
nature  and  humanity  seem  to  acquire  a  new 
dignity;  the  ocean  is  pictured  as  a  kindly,  helpful 
attendant,  like  a  sweet-faced  nurse  at  a  well- 
appointed  hospital.  Arnold's  adjective  "cold" 
spoils  the  whole  warm  and  peaceful  effect.  The 
mistake  is  due  to  a  radically  defective  attitude 
toward  the  triumphs  of  modern  science.  In  the 
past  century  man  has  gained  dominion  over  the 
sea  in  a  wonderful  way,  so  that  he  is  no  longer 
afraid  of  it  as  in  the  old  days  when  he  pictured 
it  as  a  dragon  or  demon.  In  these  days,  with  due 
precautions,  it  is  as  safe  to  live  upon  the  ocean  as 
upon  dry  land.  Some  wealthy  people  are  actually 
known  to  live  on  a  favorite  ocean  liner  plying 
betweej^Tew  York  and  Southampton.  The  sea 
is  no  longer  a  divider  but  a  unifier.  When  the 
Panama  Canal  is  completed  San  Francisco  will 
be  much  closer  than  before  to  New  York.  And 
then  how  much  has  science  done  to  make  us 
understand  the  health-giving  functions  of  the  sea! 
its  ozone-laden  breezes;  its  ability  to  cool  and  tem- 
per a  whole  coast,  like  that  extending  from  Puget 


42  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Sound  to  San  Diego,  or,  by  its  Gulf  Stream,  to 
make  the  shores  of  Ireland  and  North  Britain 
habitable. 

Keats  rises  to  the  occasion,  and  characterizes 
the  ocean  as  God's  ambassador  and  minister — a 
priest — performing  a  divine  task.  With  a  strangely 
blind  conservatism  Arnold  misses  the  whole  point 
and  presents  a  picture  that  jars  us  and  makes 
us  shiver.  He  allowed  his  old-world  proclivities 
to  master  him  and  to  deaden  his  poetic  insight. 
Neopaganism  like  this  has  no  message  for  modern 
humanity. 

His  great  contemporary,  the  poet-laureate,  does 
not  fail  in  this  respect.  Tennyson  is  friendly 
to  the  sea,  regarding  it  as  a  mighty  influence 
beneficent  to  man.  In  "In  Memoriam"  he 
makes  the  ocean  a  friend  who  soothes: 

The  salt  sea- water  passes  by, 
And  hushes  half  the  babbling  Wye, 
And  makes  a  silence  in  the  hills. 

And  in  "Enoch  Arden"  the  poet  speaks  of  the 
sea  and  land  as  friends — "a  roar  of  the  sea  when 
he  welcomes  the  land."  Even  in  "Self-Depend- 
ence," where  Arnold  draws  nearer  to  the  sea, 
he  links  it  to  the  stars  in  a  subordinate  way,  and 
makes  it  typical  of  isolation.  The  stars  and  the 
sea,  he  declares, 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT    43 

Unaffrighted  by  the  silence  round  them, 

Undistracted  by  the  sights  they  see, 
These  demand  not  that  the  things  without  them 

Yield  them  love,  amusement,  sympathy. 

And  with  joy  the  stars  perform  their  shining, 
And  the  sea  its  long  moon-silvered  roll; 

For  self-poised  they  live,  nor  pine  with  noting 
All  the  fever  of  some  differing  soul. 

Bounded  by  themselves,  and  unregardful 
In  what  state  God's  other  works  may  be, 

In  their  own  tasks  all  their  powers  pouring, 
These  attain  the  mighty  life  you  see. 

How  unlike  Keats's  "priestlike  task,"  or  the 
"  modern  chemistry"  recognition  of  the  ozone-filled 
ocean  as  a  great  physician  and  healer! 

"He  who  is  man,"  remarks  Obermann  in  one 
of  his  letters,  "knows  how  to  love  without 
forgetting  that  love  is  but  an  accident  of  life." 
This  is  the  root  fallacy  of  his  whole  outlook.  What 
strikes  one  in  reading  his  pages  is  the  aloofness, 
the  absence  of  other  personalities  in  his  life,  domi- 
nating him,  or  being  dominated  by  him.  He 
gives  an  outline  of  his  spiritual  career  in 
another  letter.  When  he  left  childhood  behind, 
the  period  that  we  all  regret,  he  imagined  that 
he  felt  real  life;  but  he  found  only  "fantastic  sen- 
sations." He  looked  on  beings,  and  they  were 
only  shadows;  he  longed  for  harmony,  and  found 
only  contraries.  Then  he  waxed  gloomy,  and  his 


44  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

heart  grew  hollow;  with  unlimited  desires,  he  felt 
the  ennui  of  life  come  upon  him  just  when  man 
usually  begins  to  live.  For  a  time  his  restless 
spirit  found  relief  and  solace  among  the  Alps; 
the  silence  and  beauty  of  the  lakes  and  forests 
seemed  to  realize  the  longed-for  perfection.  He 
"heard  the  sound  of  another  world."  But  a 
return  to  the  humdrum  routine  of  earth  disabused 
him  again,  ridding  him  of  his  "blind  faith."  He 
could  see  naught  but  endless  changes,  purposeless 
actions,  universal  impenetrability,  in  this  world 
which  we  occupy.  "Our  dreams  vanish,  and 
what  replaces  them  ?  Power  wearies;  pleasure  slips 
from  our  grasp;  glory  is  for  our  ashes;  religion 
is  a  system  for  the  unhappy.  Love  had  the  colors 
of  life;  but  the  shadow  comes,  the  rose  pales  and 
falls  to  earth,  and  behold  eternal  night!" 

This  is  not  healthy  sentiment,  nor  sound  philos- 
ophy, but  the  morbidity  of  a  sick  personality, 
requiring  sustenance  and  stimulus  from  other  per- 
sonalities. The  word  "  ennui,"  ever  recurring,  has 
no  place  in  the  record  of  a  wholesome,  well- 
ordered  life.  All  life  is  indeed  change;  but,  in 
wholesome  life,  all  change  has  a  definite  purpose. 
In  loving  and  caring  for  others  we  penetrate  their 
hearts  and  discover  the  real  meaning  of  life. 

Senancour's  Obermann  was  inherently  a  senti- 
mentalist who  spent  his  days  in  dreams  that  came 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT          45 

to  nothing,  in  tracing  out  wishes  that  could  never 
be  fulfilled.  A  call  to  real  activity,  the  infusion 
of  some  moral  vitality,  might,  thinks  George  Sand, 
have  converted  him  into  a  saint.  With  his 
incisive  Voltairean  philosophy,  his  fondness  fur 
elegiac  moods,  his  literary  perfection  of  phrase, 
he  exercised  a  fascinating  but  unhappy  influence 
upon  Arnold.  College  and  school  life — the  life 
that  Arnold  lived — is  almost  as  artificial  as  that  of 
a  convent.  The  dreams  and  enthusiasms  of 
youths  and  maidens  take  a  literary  and  ineffective 
shape,  and  their  sorrows  are  euthanasiac  and 
morbid.  The  very  term  "academic"  has  in 
practical  life  something  of  the  capricious  and 
unpractical.  The  pages  of  "Obermann"  are  excel- 
lent pasture  for  the  budding  essayist  who  wants 
to  do  a  finished  thing  in  literary  work;  but  the 
exquisite  psychological  diagnosis  is  not  to  be 
regarded  as  more  than  mildly  helpful  in  any  virile 
discussion  of  modern  social,  philosophical,  and 
theological  problems. 

A  later  deliverance,  in  prose,  would  seem  to 
show  that  Arnold  was  fully  alive  to  the  singularly 
negative  aspect  of  Senancour's  whole  teaching. 
The  passage  is  to  be  found  in  his  "Discourses  in 
America,"  where  he  is  dealing  with  Emerson.  He 
quotes  a  letter  from  Emerson  to  Carlyle,  wherein 
the  writer  confesses  that  the  "strong  hours  con- 


46  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

quer  him,"  and  that  he  is  the  victim  of  miscellany 
miscellany  of  designs,  vast  debility,  and  procras 
tination.  "The  forlorn  note  belonging  to  th< 
phrase  Vast  debility/  "  adds  Arnold,  "recall; 
that  saddest  and  most  discouraged  of  writers,  th< 
author  of  'Obermann,'  Senancour,1  with  whorr 
Emerson  has  in  truth  a  certain  kinship.  He  has 
in  common  with  Senancour,  his  pureness,  hi: 
passion  for  nature,  his  single  eye;  and  here  w< 
find  him  confessing,  like  Senancour,  a  sense  ii 
himself  of  sterility  and  impotence." 

Arnold  may  be  considered,  then,  as  treating 
Obermann  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  a  bitter 
sweet  tonic,  a  wholesome  alterative./  Personally 
his  mood  was  optimistic,  and  he  had  a  surplus  o: 
gladness;  as  one  critic  remarks,  Arnold's  pessi 
mism  was  not  of  the  feelings  but  of  the  under 
standing.  His  real  sympathies  would  probablj 
have  allied  him  to  the  more  hopeful  and  radian 
French  school  of  Idees-Forces,  known  amon< 
English  thinkers  as  Pragmatists.  These  philoso 
phers  regard  the  whole  world  as  moving  to  per 
fection  on  the  basis  of  conduct.  They  carry  ou 
Arnold's  quaint  dictum,  "  Conduct  is  three  fourth; 
of  life,"  into  a  systematic  philosophy,  and  teact 
that  to  be  is  to  act;  that  the  whole  of  life  is  in  the 

1  The  spelling  "Senancour,"  found  throughout  the  authorized  edition  o 
Arnold's  works,  has  been  followed;  the  actual  French  form  is  "Senancour.' 
— Author's  Note. 


ARNOLD  AND  FRENCH  THOUGHT    47 

present;  and  that  the  meaning  and  reason  of 
the  "all-assuming  years"  are  to  be  found  in  the 
potency  of  to-day.  Their  ethical  system  may  be 
defined  as  moral  opportunism;  for  it  has  no  stay 
on  a  personal  God,  who  has  willed  things,  is 
willing  things,  and  will  call  upon  his  creatures, 
some  day,  to  give  an  account  of  their  stewardship, 
as  responsible  to  him. 


A 


CHAPTER  III 

ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  AS  RELIGIOUS 
TEACHERS 

IT  is  impossible  to  understand  or  appreciate 
Arnold  fully  unless  we  are  acquainted  with  the 
best  work  of  his  predecessor  and  master,  William 
Wordsworth.  One  of  the  most  profoundly  sig- 
nificant events  in  the  life  of  the  great  poet  was 
when  he  received  the  doctor's  degree  at  the  Ox- 
ford Commemoration  of  1839,  amid  unusual 
plaudits.  For,  a  quarter  of  a  century  before, 
Wordsworth  had  been  scorned  as  a  poetaster 
and  literary  crank.  To  none  must  the  apprecia- 
tion have  come  with  greater  delight  than  to  the 
Arnolds,  father  and  son,  who  were  sworn  ad- 
mirers of  the  modern  prophet  of  natural  religion. 
It  was  an  act  of  national  approval  and  confidence. 

So  much  of  the  best  in  the  religious  life  of  pa- 
ganism did  Arnold  find  in  Wordsworth  that  this 
particular  aspect  of  Wordsworthianism  bulks  too 
largely  in  his  estimate  of  the  poet's  teaching.  In 
his  essay  on  Marcus  Aurelius,  a  man  whose  pure 
and  noble  character  seemed  to  him — as  it  has 
done  to  others,  John  Wesley  among  the  number — 
to  reach  a  verv  pinnacle  of  greatness,  he  finds  in 

48 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  49 

the  emperor's  outlook  on  life  much  to  remind  him 
of  Wordsworth's  teachings.  Remarking  on  the 
admixture  of  sweetness  with  dignity  which  makes 
the  Roman  so  beautiful  a  moralist,  Arnold  declares 
that  it  enables  him  to  carry  even  into  his  obser- 
vation of  nature  a  delicate  penetration,  a  sympa- 
thetic tenderness,  worthy  of  Wordsworth.  The 
spirit  of  such  a  remark  as  the  following  has  hardly 
a  parallel,  he  thinks,  in  the  whole  range  of 
Greek  and  Roman  literature: 

Figs,  when  they  are  quite  ripe,  gape  open;  and  in  the 
ripe  olives  the  very  circumstance  of  their  being  near  to 
rottenness  adds  a  peculiar  beauty  to  the  fruit.  And  the  ears 
of  corn  bending  down,  and  the  lion's  eyebrows  and  the  foam 
which  flows  from  the  mouth  of  the  wild  boars,  and  many 
other  things — though  they  are  far  from  being  beautiful,  in  a 
certain  sense — still,  because  they  come  in  the  course  of 
nature,  have  a  beauty  in  them,  and  they  please  the  mind; 
so  that  if  a  man  should  ha\  e  a  feeling  and  a  deeper  insight 
with  respect  to  the  things  which  are  produced  in  the  universe, 
there  is  hardly  anything  which  comes  in  the  course  of  nature 
which  will  not  seem  to  him  to  be  in  a  manner  disposed  so  as 
to  give  him  pleasure. 

"But  it  is  when  his  strain  passes  to  directly 
moral  subjects,"  declares  Arnold,  "that  his  deli- 
cacy and  sweetness  lend  to  it  the  greatest  charm." 

The  other  teachers  of  antiquity  whom  Arnold 
would  raise  to  a  level  with  modern  Christian  poets 
at  their  best  are  Simonides,  Pindar,  ^schylus, 
and  Sophocles,  who  lived  in  a  time  when  it  seemed 
to  him  that  "poetry  made  the  noblest,  the  most 

4 


50  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

successful  effort  she  has  ever  made  as  the  priestess 
of  the  imaginative  reason,  of  the  element  by  which 
the  modern  spirit,  if  it  would  live  right,  has  chiefly 
to  live." 

Matthew  Arnold  knew  and  loved  the  poets  of 
ancient  Greece  in  an  intimate  and  first-hand  way, 
and  his  tribute  to  their  greatness  is  not  a  conven- 
tional or  artificial  one;  he  felt  their  power  and 
nobility.  On  the  other  hand,  his  associations  with 
Wordsworth  were  singularly  close  and  friendly, 
and  merit  a  passing  notice  before  proceeding  to 
further  discussion. 

The  Arnolds  became  'immediate  neighbors  of 
Wordsworth  when  Matthew  was  a  lad  of  ten,  and 
his  holidays  were  spent  in  the  beautiful  lake  coun- 
try surrounding  Rydal.  Rugby,  their  other  home, 
lies  in  a  flat  and  uninteresting  district,  and  the 
good  Doctor  was  glad  to  retire  for  health  and 
inspiration  to  the  mountain  slopes  of  West- 
moreland and  Cumberland.  "I  could  still  rave 
about  Rydal,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters  to  an 
old  college  friend ;  "it  was  a  period  of  five  weeks  of 
almost  awful  happiness,  absolutely  without  a  cloud; 
and  we  all  enjoyed  it,  I  think,  equally — mother, 
father,  and  fry.  Our  intercourse  with  the  Words- 
worths  was  one  of  the  brightest  spots  of  all; 
nothing  could  exceed  their  friendliness — and  my 
almost  daily  walks  with  him  were  things  not  to 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  51 

be  forgotten.  .  .  .  We  were  thinking  of  buying  or 
renting  a  place  at  Grasmere  or  Rydal,  to  spend 
our  holidays  at  constantly;  for  not  only  are  the 
Wordsworths  and  the  scenery  a  very  great  attrac- 
tion, but  as  I  had  the  chapel  at  Rydal  all  the  time 
of  our  last  visit  I  got  acquainted  with  the  poorer 
people  besides." 

Matthew  was  the  largest  of  the  "fry,"  and  was 
drinking  in  everything,  no  doubt.  Next  New 
Year's  Day  the  father  writes:  "New  Year's  Day 
is  in  this  part  of  the  country  regarded  as  a  great 
festival,  and  we  have  had  prayers  this  morning 
even  in  our  village  chapel  at  Rydal.  May  God 
bless  us  in  all  our  doings  in  the  year  that  is  now 
begun,  and  make  us  increase  more  and  more  in 
the  knowledge  and  love  of  himself  and  of  his  Son; 
that  it  may  be  blessed  to  us,  whether  we  live  to  see 
the  end  of  it  on  earth  or  no. "  This  was  the  simple 
Christian  assurance  of  Thomas  Arnold,  shared 
by  his  friend  William  Wordsworth,  that  the  life 
on  earth  is  continued  in  heaven.  How  far  his 
son  was  to  travel  from  this  "illusion"  it  is  my 
purpose  in  this  chapter  to  show. 

Before  the  year  was  out  the  Arnolds  were 
established  in  a  house  of  their  own  which  became 
associated  with  their  name.  "The  Wordsworths' 
friendship,  for  so  I  may  call  it,"  writes  Dr. 
Arnold  to  a  pupil,  "is  certainly  one  of  the  greatest 


52  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

delights  of  Fox  How — the  name  of  my  place — and 
their  kindness  in  arranging  everything  in  our 
absence  has  been  very  great."  And  references 
recur  later  in  his  letters  testifying  to  his  intimate 
friendship  with  the  great  poet. 

The  son,  then,  grew  up  among  Lake  School 
associations,  and  essentially  in  sympathy  with 
the  great  exponent  of  its  principles.  In  political 
matters,  it  is  true,  the  somewhat  ironbound  con- 
servatism of  Wordsworth  was  directly  opposed 
to  the  liberalism  of  the  two  Arnolds.  But  their 
ideals  of  conduct  and  of  life  were  in  harmony; 
they  respected  and  revered  the  pure  and  sacred 
traditions  of  the  English  home  and  family. 

When  Wordsworth  died,  in  1850,  Matthew 
Arnold  seized  the  occasion  to  write  "Memorial 
Verses,"  in  which  he  contrasted  the  dead  poet 
with  Goethe  and  Byron,  not  to  his  disadvantage. 
"Time,"  he  declared,  "may  restore  us  in  his 
course  the  sage  mind  of  Goethe  and  the  force 
of  Byron;  but  where  will  a  later  Europe  again  find 
the  healing  power  of  Wordsworth  ?"  Here  is  his 
appreciation: 

And  Wordsworth! — Ah,  pale  ghosts,  rejoice t 
For  never  has  such  soothing  voice 
Been  to  your  shadowy  world  conveyed 
Since  erst,    at  morn,  some  wandering  shade 
Heard  the  clear  song  of  Orpheus  come 
Through  Hades,  and  the  mournful  glooin. 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  53 

Wordsworth  has  gone  from  us — and  ye, 

Ah,  may  ye  feel  his  voice  as  we! 

He  too  upon  a  wintry  clime 

Had  fallen — on  this  iron  time 

Of  doubts,  disputes,  distractions,  fears. 

He  found  us  when  the  age  had  bound 

Our  souls  in  its  benumbing  round ; 

He  spoke,  and  loosed  our  heart  in  tears. 

He  laid  us  as  we  lay  at  birth 

On  the  cool  flowery  path  of  earth: 

Smiles  broke  from  us  and  we  had  ease; 

The  hills  were  round  us,  and  the  breeze 

Went  o'er  the  sunlit  fields  again; 

Our  foreheads  felt  the  wind  and  rain. 

Our  youth  returned;  for  there  was  shed 

On  spirits  that  had  long  been  dead, 

Spirits  dried  up  and  closely  furled, 

The  freshness  of  the  early  world. 

These  lines  have  received,  and  justly,  great  praise. 
But  are  they  an  adequate  appreciation  ?  Is  Arnold 
justified  in  eliminating  the  Christian  element  in 
Wordsworth,  and  confining  his  vocabulary  and  ref- 
erences entirely  to  what  is  pagan  ?  Surely  Words- 
worth's best  work  was  distinctly  Christian.  Let  us 
compare  this  appreciation  with  that  of  the  Quaker 
poet: 

WHITTIER  ON  WORDSWORTH 

Dear  friends  who  read  the  world  aright — 
And  in  its  common  forms  discern 

A  beauty  and  a  harmony 
The  many  never  learn  1 

Kindred  in  soul  of  him  who  found 
In  simple  flower  and  leaf  and  stone 

The  impulse  of  the  sweetest  lays 
Our  Saxon  tongue  has  known — 


54  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Accept  this  record  of  a  life 

As  sweet  and  pure,  as  calm  and  good, 
As  a  long  day  of  blandest  June 

In  green  field  and  in  wood. 

How  welcome  to  our  ears,  long  pained 
By  strife  of  sect  and  party  noise, 

The  brooklike  murmur  of  his  song 
Of  nature's  simple  joys! 

The  violet  by  its  mossy  stone, 

The  primrose  by  the  river's  brim, 

And  chance-sown  daffodil  have  found 
Immortal  life  through  him. 

The  sunrise  on  his  breezy  lake, 

The  rosy  tints  his  sunset  brought, 

World-seen,  are  gladdening  all  the  vales 
And  mountain  peaks  of  thought. 

Art  builds  on  sand;  the  works  of  pride 
And  human  passion  change  and  fall; 

But  that  which  shares  the  life  of  God 
With  him  survive th  all. 


A  close  comparison  of  these  studies  will,  I  think, 
reveal  the  fact  that  Whittier  gives  us  more  of  the 
atmosphere^  ofWordsworth  than  does  Arnold — 
leaving  questions  or^poetical  excellence  apart. 
Arnold  recognizes  in  the  poet  a  physician  of  the 
soul  who  for  the  time  being  made  life  more 
worth  living;  one  who  brought  back  the  Greek 
delight  in  the  outer  world  and  the  forms  of  leaf 
and  flower;  who  made  the  fields  sunlit  again.  But 
is  there  not  in  this  appreciation  the  defect  noted 
by  Arnold's  own  father  —  the  mere  artistic 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  55 

attitude  toward  the  world  ?  Surely  Words- 
worth's message  was  not  simply  a  lullaby  which 
soothes  a  fretful  child  and  makes  him  smile  and 
forget.  Did  he  shirk  the  darker  problems  of 
life  and  give  no  answer  to  its  questions — merely 
"putting  these  things  by"  ? 

Wordsworth,  according  to  Whittier,  is  enjoyed 
by  the  favored  few  who  read  the  world  aright; 
and  this  final  word  is  characteristic  of  his  whole 
outlook  as  distinguished  from  Arnold's;  he  read 
the  world  as  it  ought  to  be  read  by  all  who 
know  and  feel  the  truth.  The  Quaker  poet  claims 
for  Wordsworth's  teaching  an  essential  Tightness 
and  final  truth.  Arnold's  tribute  is  more  aesthetic 
or  artistic;  it  is  fanciful  and  literary.  It  refers  us 
to  the  song  of  Orpheus  and  the  life  of  ancient 
Greece — to  the  "freshness  of  the  earlier  world." 
Whittier  asserts  far  more  than  Arnold;  he  dwells 
on  the  final  harmony  which  Wordsworth  revealed 
not  only  in  his  poetry  but  in  his  life.  This  was  a 
gift  to  the  world,  conferred  upon  it  not  by  a  mere 
artist  but  by  a  believer  and  a  devotee  who  shared 
in  God's  life.  Whittier  ends  his  tribute  with  a 
reference  to  the  personality  of  God  and  the  pres- 
ence in  the  world  of  the  divine  life.  Wordsworth 
gave  us,  he  asserts,  not  an  anodyne,  but  spiritual 
food. 

The  lovers  of  Wordsworth  find  him  at  his  best 


56  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

in  his  "Intimations  of  Immortality  from  Recollec- 
tions of  Childhood,"  the  loftiest  strain  the  poet  ever 
uttered.  Here  we  have  the  "full,  the  perfect 
Wordsworth,  .  .  .  informed  and  chastened  by  an 
intense  sense  of  human  conduct,  of  reverence  and 
almost  of  humbleness,  displayed  in  the  utmost 
poetic  felicity."  When  Wordsworth  spoke  of 
finding  strength 

In  the  soothing  thoughts  that  spring 

Out  of  human  suffering, 

In  the  faith  that  looks  through  death, 

he  was  not  using  mere  phrases  for  the  purposes  of 
artistic  effect;  he  spoke  as  a  believer.  He  consid- 
ered, and  rightly,  that  the  hope  of  immortality 
was  the  sheet  anchor  of  our  faith.  The  sixth 
book  of  his  "Excursion"  describes  a  typical  village 
pastor  who  ministers  faithfully  to  his  flock : 

Exalting  tender  themes,  by  just  degrees 

To  lofty  raised;  and  to  the  highest,  last; 

The  head  and  mighty  paramount  of  truths — 

Immortal  life  in  never-fading  worlds, 

For  mortal  creatures,  conquered  and  secured. 

To  Arnold,  Wordsworth  seemed  often  inspired 
in  the  most  direct  way.  "Nature  herself  seems," 
he  remarks  in  his  essay  on  Wordsworth,  "to  take 
the  pen  out  of  his  hand,  and  to  write  for  him  with 
her  own  bare,  sheer,  penetrating  power.  This 
arises  from  two  causes:  from  the  profound  sin- 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  57 

cereness  with  which  Wordsworth  feels  his  subject, 
and  also  from  the  profoundly  sincere  and  natural 
character  of  his  subject  itself."  And  yet  he  had 
but  a  qualified  admiration  for  the  great  Ode,  as 
"not  wholly  free  from  something  declamatory," 
this  poem  which  Professor  Saintsbury,  in  a  passage 
just  quoted,  terms  the  expression  of  "the  full  and 
perfect  Wordsworth. "  It  seemed  to  Arnold  to  be 
based  on  an  "illusion,"  the  illusion  of  immor- 
tality. A  few  words  on  illusions. 

It  is  astonishing  how  frequently  this  word 
^illusion"  recurs  in  modern  French  ethical  discus- 
sion, becoming,  indeed,  a  kind  of  keyword.  As 
interpreted  by  a  certain  school  of  thinkers,  with 
whom  Arnold  was  more  or  less  in  sympathy,  the 
universe  is  material  and  eternal — the  great  solid 
fact.  This  material  world  throws  off  from  it 
human  beings  who  possess  the  wonderful  power 
of  contemplating  it;  but  they  pass  away  like  the 
morning  vapor.  The  only  permanent  thing  these 
minds  can  do  is  to  help  other  minds,  present 
and  to  come,  to  contemplate  the  universe  in  the 
most  lucid  and  serviceable  way.  On  what 
principle  ?  On  the  principle  of  getting  most  hap- 
piness or  satisfaction  out  of  it.  What  kind  of 
happiness  or  satisfaction  ?  The  old  Epicurean 
happiness  of  sense  pleasures,  as  refined  and  pro- 
longed as  possible;  or  the  old  Stoic  satisfaction 


58  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

of  will-worship,  the  satisfaction  of  having  real- 
ized ourselves. 

Listen  to  one  French  poet  speaking  of  another 
— the  gifted  Gautier:  "A  noble  poet  is  dead. 
Regrets  ?  But  what  then  is  the  death  of  a  man 
but  the  vanishing  of  one  of  our  dreams  ?  Men, 
whom  we  believe  real,  are  but  the  triste  opacity  de 
leurs  spectres  futurs.  But  the  poet,  beyond  his 
vain  physical  existence,  lives  for  us  a  high,  im- 
perishable life.  The  poet  is  a  solemn  agitation  of 
words;  the  death  of  a  poet  purifies  our  fiction  of 
him." 

This  means  that  human  personality  is  inferior 
and  subsidiary  to  the  general  ideas  or  utterances 
to  which  it  gives  birth  and  expression;  that  person- 
alities are  mere  bubbles,  so  to  speak,  on  the  waters 
of  time.  It  means  that  this  physical  existence 
is  mere  vanity  and  emptiness,  an  emanation  of 
matter,  and  that  its  supremely  useful  result  is  to 
formulate  ideas  for  the  benefit  of  future  ages. 
The  horizon  is  the  horizon  of  the  world;  the  only 
theater  of  action  and  of  interest  is  the  stage  of  the 
world. 

Arnold  in  his  essay  on  Wordsworth,  as  we  have 
seen,  makes  use  of  this  keyword,  "illusion;"  de- 
claring that  Wordsworth's  philosophy  is  illusion 
and  unsound;  that  "the  'intimations' of  the  famous 
Ode,  those  corner  stones  of  the  supposed  philo- 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  59 

sophic  system  of  Wordsworth,  .  .  .  have  no 
real  solidity."  And  yet,  in  the  same  essay, 
when  comparing  him  with  Theophile  Gautier,  he 
declares  that  Wordsworth  surpasses  the  French- 
man because  he  deals  with  life  so  powerfully. 
Could  Wordsworth  have  dealt  powerfully  with 
life  if  his  doctrine  had  been  illusory  ?  Is  this  a 
tenable  theory  ?  Is  it  not  rank  heresy — the  belief 
that  truth  can  be  reared  on  falsehood  ?  Ex 
falso  falsum;  ex  vero  verum. 

Arnold  has  no  use  for  revivals,  or  for  the  plat- 
form and  street-preacher's  appeal.  In  the  preface 
to  his  "Culture  and  Anarchy"  he  talks  somewhat 
superciliously  of  "earnest  young  men  conceiving 
of  salvation  in  the  old  Puritan  fashion,  and  flinging 
themselves  ardently  upon  it  in  the  old,  false  ways 
of  this  fashion,  which  we  know  so  well,  and  such 
as  Mr.  Hammond,  the  American  revivalist,  has 
lately  at  Mr.  Spurgeon's  Tabernacle  been  refresh- 
ing our  memory  with."  Compare  this  attitude 
of  his  with  that  of  Wordsworth,  writing  seventy 
years  before.  When  Wordsworth,  whose  "Peter 
Bell"  was  composed  as  early  as  1798,  introduced 
into  the  story  a  scene  in  a  Methodist  chapel  he 
was  writing  as  an  outsider  and  a  literary  man 
whose  object  was  to  interpret  life.  Methodist 
preachers  were  then  the  butt  of  ordinary  men 
of  letters,  even  of  churchmen  like  Sydney 


60  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Smith.  So  late  as  1808  the  witty  canon  contrib- 
uted an  article  to  the  Edinburgh  Review  in  which 
he  spoke  of  Methodist  itinerants  as  vermin  to  be 
"caught,  killed,  and  cracked" — in  a  superfine, 
literary  fashion,  of  course — by  the  patent  pumps 
of  Edinburgh  Reviewers!  We  ought  then  to 
admire  the  moral  courage  shown  by  Wordsworth 
in  depicting  Peter  Bell  as  he  did — a  man  to  whose 
wounded  spirit  a  Methodist  preacher  brought 
healing: 

Calm  is  the  well- deserving  brute, 

His  peace  has  no  offense  betrayed ; 
But  now,  while  down  that  slope  he  wends, 
A  voice  to  Peter's  ear  ascends, 

Resounding  from  the  woody  glade: 

The  voice,  though  clamorous  as  a  horn 

Reechoed  by  a  native  rock, 
Comes  from  that  tabernacle — List ! 
Within,  a  fervent  Methodist 

Is  preaching  to  his  flock! 

The  appeal  to  his  better  nature,  and  the  offer 
of  salvation,  proved  too  much  for  Peter,  who 
melted  into  tears — 

Sweet  tears  of  hope  and  tenderness! 

And  fast  they  fell,  a  plenteous  shower! 
His  nerves,  his  sinews  seemed  to  melt; 
Through  all  his  iron  frame  was  felt 

A  gentle,  a  relaxing  power! 

In  the  prefatory  note  attached  to  the  1818 
edition  of  the  poem  occurs  this  passage:  "The 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  61 

worship  of  the  Methodists  or  Ranters  is  often 
heard  during  the  stillness  of  the  summer  evening 
in  the  country,  with  affecting  accompaniments 
of  rural  beauty.  In  both  the  psalmody  and  the 
voice  of  the  preacher  there  is,  not  infrequently, 
much  solemnity  likely  to  impress  the  feelings  of 
the  rudest  character  under  favorable  circum- 


stances/' 


My  object  in  quoting  these  passages  is  to  show 
that  Wordsworth's  world,  to  which  he  transports 
us  for  comfort,  happiness,  and  healing,  is  no  old 
pagan  world,  haunted  by  nymphs  and  satyrs,  and 
stiTddeil  With  mystic  shrines,  but  a  world  hallowed 
by  Christian  worship  and  echoing  the  Christian 
message.  These  were  the  words  of  the  preacher 
which  struck  conviction  to  Peter's  heart: 

"Repent!  repent!"  he  cries  aloud, 

"While  yet  ye  may  find  mercy; — strive 

To  love  the  Lord  with  all  your  might; 

Turn  to  Him,  seek  Him  day  and  night, 
And  save  your  soul  alive!" 

Wordsworth  accepted  Methodism  in  its  entirety 
as  a  beneficent  influence,  while  allowing  for  the 
deficiencies  that  accompany  all  popular  move- 
ments; he  did  not  register  his  inconsistency  as 
Matthew  Arnold  did,  by  honoring  Wesley  and 
despising  Wesley's  life's  work. 

We  know  that  Coleridge  had  a  profound 
admiration  for  the  character  of  Wesley,  and  sug- 


62  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

gested  to  Southey  the  advisability  of  undertaking 
the  biography.  Deep,  indeed,  ought  to  be  the 
gratitude  of  Methodists  to  Robert  Southey  for  the 
service  he  rendered  to  the  cause  of  truth  in  giving 
John  Wesley  his  proper  place  in  the  world's 
estimation.  When  all  deductions  are  made  from 
its  excellences,  Southey's  "  Life  of  Wesley  "  re- 
mains, to  use  the  term  applied  to  it  by  a  recent 
Methodist  biographer,  a  "beautiful"  book. 

Through  his  father,  Southey,  and  the  Words- 
worths  Arnold  inherited  a  high  respect  for 
Wesley;  but  he  is  careful  to  limit  his  admiration 
to  Wesley  the  English  Churchman.  "The  fruitful 
men  of  English  Puritanism  and  Nonconformity," 
he  remarks  in  the  preface  to  his  "Culture  and 
Anarchy,"  "were  trained  within  the  pale  of  the 
Establishment — Milton,  Baxter,  Wesley."  For  the 
gospel  message  of  Wesley  and  his  followers  he  has 
scant  respect;  witness  what  he  says  in  the  preface 
to  "God  and  the  Bible": 

"I  heard  Mr.  Moody  preach  to  one  of  his  vast 
audiences  on  a  topic  eternally  attractive — salvation 
by  Jesus  Christ.  Mr.  Moody's  account  was  exactly 
the  old  (Methodist)  story,  to  which  I  have  often 
adverted,  of  the  contract  in  the  Council  of  the 
Trinity.  Justice  puts  in  her  claim,  said  Mr. 
Moody,  for  the  punishment  of  guilty  mankind; 
God  admits  it.  Jesus  intercedes,  undertakes 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  63 

to  bear  their  punishment,  and  signs  an  undertak- 
ing to  that  effect.  Thousands  of  years  pass; 
Jesus  is  on  the  cross  on  Calvary.  Justice  appears, 
and  presents  to  him  his  signed  undertaking.  Jesus 
accepts  it,  bows  his  head,  and  expires.  Christian 
salvation  consists  in  the  undoubted  belief  in  the 
transaction  here  described,  and  in  the  hearty 
acceptance  of  the  release  offered  by  it. 

"Never  let  us  deny  to  this  story  power  and 
pathos,  or  treat  with  hostility  ideas  which  have 
entered  so  deep  into  the  life  of  Christendom. 
But  the  story  is  not  true;  it  never  really  happened. 
These  personages  never  did  meet  together,  and 
speak  and  act  in  the  manner  related.  The 
personages  in  the  Christian  heaven  and  their 
conversations  are  no  more  matter  of  fact  than 
the  personages  of  the  Greek  Olympus  and  their 


conversations/1 


Notice  the  unfair  logical  step  which  Arnold 
takes  in  this  rehearsal.  He  treats  a  mere  personi- 
fication, Justice,  as  a  supposed  real  person, 
accepted  as  such  by  Mr.  Moody  and  his  fellow 
Christians,  and  then  banishes  God,  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  personified  Justice  to  the  limbo  of  shadows 
as  all  equally  unreal.  "Salvation  by  Jesus  Christ, 
therefore,"  continues  he,  "/'/  it  has  any  reality, 
must  be  placed  somewhere  else  than  in  a  hearty 
consent  to  Mr.  Moody's  (  ?)  story. " 


64  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Writing  to  his  mother  at  the  close  of  1 86 1,  when 
the  Mason  and  Slidell  case  had  strained  matters 
almost  to  the  breaking  point  between  Britain  and 
the  United  States,  Arnold  shows  how  little  he  is  in 
sympathy  with  Evangelicals  in  either  country: 
"Every  one  I  see  is  very  warlike.  I  myself  think 
that  it  has  become  indispensable  to  give  the 
Americans  a  moral  lesson,  and  fervently  hope  it 
will  be  given  them;  but  I  am  still  inclined  to  think 
that  they  will  take  their  lesson  without  war. 
However,  people  keep  saying  they  won't.  The 
most  remarkable  thing  is  that  that  feeling  of  sym- 
pathy with  them  (based  very  much  on  the  ground 
of  their  common  radicalness,  dissentingness,  and 
general  mixture  of  self-assertion  and  narrowness) 
which  I  thought  our  middle  classes  entertained 
seems  to  be  so  much  weaker  than  was  to  be 
expected.  I  always  thought  it  was  this  sympathy, 
and  not  cotton,  that  kept  our  government  from 
resenting  their  insolences,  for  I  don't  imagine 
the  feeling  of  kinship  with  them  exists  at  all  among 
the  higher  classes;  after  immediate  blood  relation- 
ship the  relationship  of  the  Soul  is  the  only 
important  thing,  and  this  one  has  far  more  with 
the  French,  Italians,  or  Germans  than  with  the 
Americans." 

A  passage  like  this,  revealing  his  aloofness  from 
middle-class  "meetinghouse"  people,  goes  far  to 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  65 

explain  his  lack  of  success  as  the  apostle  of  a  new 
creed,  reducing  God  to  an  impersonal  tendency 
that  makes  for  righteousness.  A  sentence  like 
the  following  puts  the  whole  matter  in  a  nutshell: 
"  Those  who,  like  Christian  philosophers  in  general, 
begin  by  admitting  that  of  the  constitution  of  God 
we  know  nothing,  and  who  add,  even,  that  *  we 
are  utterly  powerless  to  conceive  or  comprehend 
the  idea  of  an  infinite  Being,  Almighty,  All- 
knowing,  Omnipotent,  and  Eternal,  of  whose 
inscrutable  purpose  the  material  universe  is  the 
unexplained  manifestation,'  but  then  proceed 
calmly  to  affirm  such  a  Being  as  positively  as  if  he 
were  a  man  they  were  acquainted  with  in  the  next 
street,  talk  idly."  And  yet  such  a  conviction 
of  the  nearness  of  God  to  every  one  of  us,  of 
the  immediacy  of  his  dealings  with  human  hearts, 
of  his  pleading  with  us  like  a  father,  lies  at  the  root 
of  all  experimental  Christianity.  It  is  the  hall- 
mark of  a  living  hymnology,  the  essence  of  revival 
fervor.  In  his  "Peter  Bell"  Wordsworth  con- 
fesses that  this  attitude  of  conviction  is  harmonious 
with  all  nature,  and  that  the  sudden  realization 
of  God's  power  and  mercy  as  revealed  in  the  gospel 
story  can  change  a  ruffian  into  a  man  clothed  and 
in  his  right  mind.  But  to  Matthew  Arnold  all 
this  is  phantasmagorial,  fallacious,  misleading. 
Yet  surely  out  of  truth  comes  truth.  These 
s 


66  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Christian  beliefs  and  sympathies  inspired  Words- 
worth to  write  the  noblest  of  his  odes,  possibly  the 
noblest  ode  in  the  language.  Can  we,  in  estimating 
Wordsworth  aright,  calmly  place  these  convictions 
aside,  and  coolly  rank  the  poet  with  an  ancient 
Greek  pagan  ?  Arnold's  odd  attempts  at  theology 
led  him  into  strange  inconsistencies  and  asser- 
tions of  impossibilities,  which  merit  some  rough 
handling. 

In  his  lines  "  To  a  Gypsy  Child  by  the  Seashore" 
Arnold  reveals  how  profoundly  he  was  impressed 
by  Wordsworth's  Ode  on  Immortality;  the  poem, 
indeed,  is  not  fully  intelligible  unless  we  are 
familiar  with  the  earlier  lyric.  A  better  title  for 
the  Ode,  perhaps,  would  be,  not  "Intimations  of 
Immortality  from  Recollections  of  Childhood,"  but 
"Intimations  of  Eternality  from  Recollections  of 
Childhood."  Immortality  merely  implies  conti- 
nuity of  the  life  begun  here;  the  survival  of  the 
personality  after  the  death  of  the  body.  But 
Wordsworth's  "Immortality"  deals  with  a  pro- 
longation of  life  backward;  a  prenatal  existence. 
He  argues  that  the  soul  comes  down  from  heaven  as 
well  as  returns  thither;  that  the  child,  when  born 
into  the  world,  gradually  forgets  the  glory  of  a 
world  which  he  has  just  left.  The  young  human 
soul  comes  "not  in  entire  forgetfulness,  and  not  in 
utter  nakedness,"  but  like  a  "trailing  cloud  of 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  67 

glory  from  God."  It  comes  with  a  benediction 
for  humanity,  with  an  innate  attraction  toward 
goodness  and  purity.  These  passages  in  the  Ode 
remind  the  reader  of  the  words  of  our  Saviour: 
"Except  ye  be  converted,  and  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  Its  opening  words  are: 

There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove,  and  stream, 
The  earth  and  every  common  sight 

To  me  did  seem 
Appareled  in  celestial  light ; 

which  means  that  childhood  was  a  time  when  the 
poet  felt  close  to  heaven.  This  introductory  pas- 
sage breathes  the  fragrance  of  the  exquisitely 
pure  domestic  life  of  England  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  It  is  not  Wordsworth  alone 
who  speaks  in  this  strain.  To  John  Henry  New- 
man, trained  in  a  thoroughly  Puritan  English 
home,  the  people  around  him  in  his  early  child- 
hood appeared  as  angels,  not  earthborn  but  visit- 
ants from  heaven.  "I  thought  life  might  be  a 
dream,  or  I  an  angel,  and  all  this  world  a  deception, 
my  fellow  angels  by  a  playful  device  concealing 
themselves  from  me,  and  deceiving  me  with  the 
semblance  of  a  material  world."  We  are  so  apt 
to  think  of  the  Puritan  theology  of  a  hundred 
years  ago — those  Puritans  who,  according  to 
Matthew  Arnold,  "knew  not  God,"  that  is,  his 


68  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

God  of  sweetness  and  light — as  terrorizing  chil- 
dren with  the  horrors  of  hell,  that  we  forget  the 
obverse  side  of  the  shield,  the  happy  heaven  that 
was  ever  made  present  to  them.  Sin  was  then 
recognized  as  so  repulsive  in  its  every  aspect  that 
children  in  well-ordered  households  lived  in 
an  atmosphere  steeped  in  duty  and  purity. 
Their  later  intercourse  with  the  world  blunted 
this  simple,  exquisite,  spontaneous  delight  in  the 
world  of  phenomena  which  God  looked  upon  at 
creation  and  declared  very  good. 

Wordsworth  did  not  teach  this  theory  of  a  pre- 
natal existence  as  a  doctrine;  indeed,  he  expressly 
rejected  so  definite  an  attitude.  But  he  regarded 
the  theory  as  harmonious  with  the  best  Christian 
aspirations  and  beliefs,  and  full  of  suggestive  com- 
fort. In  any  case,  the  child  world  he  depicted  is 
the  child  world  of  the  Christian  home. 

Arnold  dallies  with  the  prenatal  conception  in 
his  lines  "To  a  Gypsy  Child."  Unlike  Words- 
worth's happy  lad,  who  is  so  full  of  the  light 
and  the  life  whence  it  flows  that  he  is  rapturous 
with  joy  and  shouts  with  delight,  this  little  gypsy  is 
pensive  and  moody;  "clouds  of  doom  are  massed 
round  that  slight  brow:" 

Down  the  pale  cheek  long  lines  of  shadow  slope, 
Which  years,  and  curious  thought,  and  suffering  give. 

— Thou  hast  foreknown  the  vanity  of  hope, 
Foreseen  thy  harvest,  yet  proceed'st  to  live. 


ARNOLD  AND  WORDSWORTH  69 

0  meek  anticipant  of  that  sure  pain 

Whose  sureness  gray-haired  scholars  hardly  learn! 
What  wonder  shall  time  breed,  to  swell  thy  strain? 

\Vhat  heavens,  what  earth,  what  suns  shalt  thou  discern  ? 

Ere  the  long  night,  whose  stillness  brooks  no  star, 
Match  that  funereal  aspect  with  her  pall, 

1  think  thou  wilt  have  fathomed  life  too  far, 
Have  known  too  much— or  else  forgotten  all. 

The  Guide  of  our  dark  steps  a  triple  veil 

Betwixt  our  senses  and  our  sorrow  keeps; 
Hath  sown  with  cloudless  passages  the  tale 

Of  grief,  and  eased  us  with  a  thousand  sleeps. 

Ah!  not  the  nectarous  poppy  lovers  use, 

Not  daily  labor's  dull,  Lethean  spring, 
Oblivion  in  lost  angels  can  infuse 

Of  the  soiled  glory,  and  the  trailing  wing. 

The  poet  addresses  her  as  if  she  were  an  angel 
born  again  into  an  alien  planet;  one  destined  to 
have  some  stray  gleams  of  sunshine  in  her  passage 
through  this  stormy  world,  and  to  win  some  few 
prizes  in  the  struggle  of  life;  but  yet  likely  to  be 
blinded  by  the  "  black  sunshine,"  to  lose  her 
pristine  grace,  and  to  relearn  but  little  of  the 
Wisdom  that  was  formerly  her  birthright.  Earthly 
life  would  finally  prove  not  worth  living: 

Once,  ere  thy  day  go  down,  thou  shalt  discern, 
Oh  once,  ere  night,  in  thy  success,  thy  chain ! 

Ere  the  long  evening  close,  thou  shalt  return, 
And  wear  this  majesty  of  grief  again. 

This  is  Wordsworthianism  conceived  in  a  con- 
trary way:  childhood  as  a  period  of  pensive  sad- 


jo  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

ness;  the  experiences  of  life,  not  as  furnishing  us 
with  "a faith  that  looks  through  death,"  but  with 
materials  to  wrap  our  brows  in  gloom  and  make  us 
feel  that  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  A 
natural  result  of  eliminating  from  religious  faith 
and  belief  the  bright  hopes  and  assurances  which 
are  woven  into  our  historic  creeds,  and  are  essen- 
tial to  our  spiritual  well-being! 


CHAPTER  IV . 

THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP 

POETS  in  every  age  have  been  fond  of  insuring 
dramatic  intensity  by  throwing  their  own  senti- 
ments into  some  historic  personage,  who  becomes 
their  mouthpiece.  The  perspective  thus  obtained 
allows  their  audiences  to  see  truth  more  clearly, 
away  from  the  disguising  and  distorting  mists 
and  shadows  of  the  present.  People  are  thus  led, 
unconsciously,  to  assent  to  opinions  which  they 
feel  to  be  true  before  they  grasp  the  immediate 
practical  import,  which  might  have  predisposed 
their  wills  unfavorably.  Arnold  has  made  use  of 
this  device.  His  historic  mouthpiece,  as  might 
be  expected,  is  a  Greek,  a  keen,  lucid  thinker,  who 
knows  the  value  of  the  phrase  "Meden  agan" 
("Nothing  too  much").  The  hymn  of  life  which 
Empedocles  sings  in  the  drama  "Empedocles  on 
Etna"  to  a  harp  accompaniment  is  of  intense 
psychological  interest  to  us,  as  embodying  the 
poet's  own  musings  and  findings  on  the  problem 
of  existence.  We  must,  of  course,  allow  for  the 
"grain  of  salt,"  the  quantum  of  dramatic  simu- 
lation; but  substantially  the  reader  must  feel  that 
the  voice  that  speaks  in  these  stanzas  is  the  voice 
of  Matthew  Arnold. 

71 


72  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

The  counterpart  in  Browning  is  "Rabbi  Ben 
Ezra,"  the  closing  message  of  the  Hebrew  teacher, 
full  of  sweet  sententiousness.  I  have  called  the 
Greek  teacher's  message  the  Mirror,  this  being 
the  simile  with  which  the  poem  opens: 

The  outspread  world  to  span, 

A  cord  the  gods  first  slung, 
And  then  the  soul  of  man 

There,  like  a  mirror,  hung, 
And  bade  the  winds  through  space  impel  the  gusty  toy. 

Hither  and  thither  spins 

The  wind-borne  mirroring  soul, 
A  thousand  glimpses  wins, 
And  never  sees  a  whole ; 

Looks  once,  and  drives  elsewhere,  and  leaves  its  last  em- 
ploy. 

It  is  a  Greek  simile,  which  carries  us  back  to 
Plato  and  Platonism.  The  broad-browed  philoso- 
pher states  that  man  has  many  ways  of  creating 
things,  none  quicker  than  that  of  turning  a  mirror 
round  and  round — you  could  soon  have  the  sun, 
and  the  heaven,  and  the  earth,  and  yourself,  and 
the  animals  and  plants  in  the  mirror.  But  the 
result  is  evanescence  and  illusion — all  such  crea- 
tion is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 

To  Browning's  lyric  I  have  given  the  name  the 
Cup,  as  embodying  his  final  conception  of  life* 
Here  we  have  not  the  Greek  lucidity,  but  the 
Hebrew  warmth  and  energy;  existence,  not  merely 
in  terms  of  vision,  which  Aristotle  and  othef 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  73 

Greek  thinkers  so  greatly  overestimated  as  a  gate- 
way of  truth,  but  in  terms  of  the  whole  being. 
The  typical  man  is  conceived  as  in  sympathetic 
association  with  his  fellows,  finally  sitting  down 
with  them  at  the  Master's  feast: 

Ay,  note  that  Potter's  wheel, 

That  metaphor!  and  feel 
Why  time  spins  fast,  why  passive  lies  our  clay, — 

Thou,  to  whom  fools  propound, 

When  the  wine  makes  its  round, 
"Since  life  fleets,  all  is  change;  the  Past  gone,  seize  to-day! " 

Fool!     All  that  is,  at  all, 

Lasts  ever,  past  recall; 
Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure: 

What  entered  into  thee, 

That  was,  is,  and  shall  be: 
Time's  wheel  runs  back  or  stops:  Potter  and  clay  endure. 

He  fixed  thee  'mid  this  dance 

Of  plastic  circumstance, 
This  Present,  thou,  forsooth,  would  fain  arrest: 

Machinery  just  meant 

To  give  thy  soul  its  bent, 
Try  thee  and  turn  thee  forth,  sufficiently  impressed. 

What  though  the  earlier  grooves, 

Which  ran  the  laughing  loves 
Around  thy  base,  no  longer  pause  and  press f 

What  though,  about  thy  rim, 

Skull-things  in  order  grim 
Grow  out,  in  graver  mood,  obey  the  sterner  stress? 

Look  not  thou  down  but  up! 

To  uses  of  a  cup, 
The  festal  board,  lamp's  flash  and  trumpet's  peal, 

The  new  wine's  foaming  flow, 

The  Master's  lips  aglow! 

Thou,  heaven's  consummate  cup,  what  need'st  thou 
with  earth's  wheel? 


74  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

The  metaphor  of  the  Potter  and  the  Wheel  was 
particularly  distasteful  to  Arnold,  and  he  rejects 
its  applicability  to  a  sweet  and  reas9nable  system 
of  religious  thought  like  Christianity.  In  his 
treatise  on  "Saint  Paul  and  Protestantism"  he  pro- 
tests against  its  use  by  the  great  apostle.  "  It  might 
seem,"  he  remarks,  "as  if  the  word  purpose  lured 
him  [Paul]  on  into  speculative  mazes,  and  involved 
him  at  last  in  an  embarrassment  from  which  he 
impatiently  tore  himself  by  the  harsh  and  unedi- 
fying  image  of  the  clay  and  the  potter.  But 
this  is  not  so.  ...  He  was  led  into  difficulty  by 
the  tendency  which  we  have  already  noticed  as 
making  his  real  imperfection  both  as  a  thinker 
and  as  a  writer — the  tendency  to  Judaize." 
Arnold  goes  on  to  say  that  Calvinists  have 
made  out  of  this  analogy  the  fundamental  idea 
of  their  theology;  which  with  Paul  was  a  mere 
addition,  extraneous  to  the  essentials  of  his 
teaching,  and  brought  in  for  mere  rhetorical 
purposes.  "It  is  as  if  Newton  had  intro- 
duced into  his  exposition  of  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion an  incidental  statement,  perhaps  erroneous, 
about  light  or  colors;  and  we  were  then  to  make 
this  statement  the  head  and  front  of  Newton's 
law."  Arnold  calls  it  a  stock  theological  figure 
found  in  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  the  Apocrypha. 

All   of  which     argument    is   an    illogical   and 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  75 

impossible  attempt  to  show  that  we  can  separate 
the  higher  teaching  of  Saint  Paul  from  that  which 
Arnold  chooses  to  term  '" Judaizing."  "Take 
Paul's  truly  essential  idea,"  he  exclaims:  "'We 
are  buried  with  Christ  through  baptism  into  death, 
that  like  as  he  was  raised  up  from  the  dead  by 
the  glory  of  the  Father,  even  so  we  also  shall  walk 
in  newness  of  life/  Did  Jeremiah  say  that  ? 
Is  anyone  the  author  of  it  except  Paul  ?  Then 
there  should  Calvinism  have  looked  for  Paul's 
secret,  and  not  in  the  commonplace  about  the 
potter  and  the  vessels  of  wrath." 

That  the  metaphor  will  bear  lofty  spiritualizing, 
suited  to  our  modern  needs  and  aspirations,  is 
abundantly  shown  by  Browning's  elaboration  of  it 
in  his  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra."  A  vessel  in  the  hand  of 
the  workman,  being  fashioned  for  further  untold 
service,  differs  in  potency  and  value  from  a  mere 
brittle  mirror  passive  in  the  hold  of  inanimate 
forces.  Personality  is  strengthened,  not  weakened, 
or  effaced,  by  coming  under  the  influence  of  higher 
personality,  to  be  fashioned  and  used;  but  person- 
ality made  the  tool  of  the  inanimate  means  the 
greater  harnessed  to  the  less,  and  so  degraded. 
Consequently  Browning's  analogy  is  full  of  the 
expansiveness  of  wondrous  possibilities;  Arnold's 
is  contracted  by  the  chill  breath  of  resignation  to 
the  inevitable. 


76  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

The  meters  in  which  the  two  poems  are  thrown, 
as  the  best  vehicle  for  the  emotional  condition  of 
poet  and  reader  in  sympathy,  are  to  a  certain 
degree  remarkably  similar,  each  containing  four 
trimeters  and  a  closing  hexameter;  a  "rolling," 
surging  close  at  once  final  in  its  effect  and 
yet  preparatory.  The  impression  resembles 
that  made  by  a  long  wave  breaking  upon  the 
sand,  and  lingering;  it  retreats  only  to  make 
way  for  a  series  of  shorter  and  less  resonant 
waves. 

But  notice  the  fuller  music  of  Browning's 
stanza.  The  syllables  in  Browning's  six  lines 
run  6,  6,  10,  6,  6,  12;  while  those  in  Arnold's  five 
lines  run  6,  6,  6,  6,  12.  In  Browning's  stanza 
the  preliminary  expansion  in  the  third  line  prepares 
for  and  increases  the  expansive  value  of  the  final 
sixth  line,  giving  a  swinging,  happy  movement  to 
the  whole  stanza: 

Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 

Into  a  narrow  act, 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped ; 

All  I  could  never  be, 

All  men  ignored  in  me, 

This  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher 
shaped. 

In  Arnold's  stanza  there  is  a  repression  char- 
acteristic of  the  poet's  whole  treatment,  and 
more  consistent  with  the  particular  theme  he 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  77 

jats.  Empedocles  is  about  to  take  his  own 
life: 

The  weary  man,  the  banished  citizen, 
Whose  banishment  was  not  his  greatest  ill, 
Whose  weariness  no  energy  could  reach, 
And  for  whose  hurt  courage  was  not  the  cure — 
What  should  he  do  with  life  and  living  more  ? 

The  four  short  lines  of  six  syllables  in  the  hymn 
stanza,  succeeding  one  another  without  break, 
have  a  chilling  effect;  and,  when  the  rolling  hex- 
ameter follows,  it  swells  rather  in  contrast  with 
the  previous  trimeters  than  as  a  resultant  expan- 
sion. The  actual  effect  is  therefore  not  really 
expansive,  but  semicynical: 

Is  this,  Pausanias,  so? 

And  can  our  souls  not  strive, 
But  with  the  winds  must  go, 

And  hurry  where  they  drive? 
Is  fate  indeed  so  strong,  man's  strength  indeed  so  poor? 

Browning's  stanza,  on  the  contrary,  makes  the 
two  trimeters  subordinate  in  each  case  to  the 
pentameter  and  to  the  hexameter,  in  an  upward 
movement,  continuous  and  progressive: 

Therefore  I  summon  age 

To  grant  youth's  heritage — 
Life's  struggle  having  so  far  reached  its  term: 

Thence  shall  I  pass,  approved 

A  man,  for  aye  removed 
From  the  developed  brute ;  a  God  though  in  the  germ. 

-   Browning's  stanza  is  a  natural  vehicle  for  his 
optimistic  hymn  of  hopefulness  and  trust;  Arnold's 


78  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

for  an  emotion  less  hopeful,  tinged  with  disap- 
pointment, distrustful  of  the  future,  anxious 
regarding  "the  something  after  death."  The 
intellectual  light  burns  clear;  it  searches  the 
heart  like  modern  X-rays;  warmth  there  is  none 
in  the  organic  whole.  The  luckless  sage,  before 
he  takes  the  fatal  plunge  into  the  glowing  crater, 
envies  the  mountain  its  heat  and  fire.  We  feel 
that  we  have  here  the  uttered  aspirations  of  a 
"soul  which  may  perish  from  cold."  Of  course, 
the  utterance  is  not  Arnold's,  any  more  than  Ham- 
let's soliloquy,  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  is  Shake- 
speare's final  utterance  on  life;  but  it  is  Arnold  as 
a  merciless  critic  of  the  illusions  of  life,  Arnold  the 
moral  physician  diagnosing  mankind  and  having 
no  panacea  to  offer.  In  the  interpretation  of 
the  individuality  which  he  chose  in  this  present 
case,  and  in  the  form  of  interpretation  which  he 
saw  fit  to  put  upon  the  individuality — for  Em- 
pedocles  is  a  somewhat  misty  personage  histor- 
ically— the  force  and  excellence  of  his  genius  is 
made  apparent.  Apart  from  the  dramatic  con- 
ditions, however,  his  limitations  appear;  for,  the 
Empedocles  diagnosis  over,  we  ask,  What  had 
Arnold  himself  to  offer  to  make  life  worth  living  ? 
Was  he  much  better  off  than  the  old  Greek  ? 
Arnold  is  never  weary  of  dwelling  upon  the 

limitations  of  the  Hebraic  conception  of  life,  and 

f 

\ 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  79 

recommending  an  Hellenic  course  of  treatment 
for  the  modern  Pharisee,  unfortunately  born 
Wesleyan  or  Baptist,  and  fond  of  the  tub  of  Dis- 
sent. The  dark  complexion  of  Browning,  the 
rounded  contour  of  his  face,  the  glowing  eyes, 
the  curved  and  full  nose,  have  led  many  to  suspect 
Jewish  ancestry;  but  an  investigation  of  his  ances- 
tral stock  yields  no  evidence  whatever  of  such 
descent.  Yet,  in  his  translation  of  himself  into 
Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  the  Hebrew  sage  of  a  thousand 
years  ago,  he  has  approved  the  felicity  of  his  choice 
of  a  medium.  Throughout  the  poem  there  is  all  the 
glow  of  Hebrew  moral  emotion;  man  treated  as 
the  friend  of  God,  who  has  shepherded  him  and 
will  finally  bring  him  into  the  fold,  the  eternal 
home  of  warmth  and  love. 

Arnold's  was  a  different  nature.  The  square 
face,  the  thin  lips,  the  straight,  narrow  nose,  sug- 
gest nicety  and  precision  and  restraint,  rather 
than  full-blooded  delight  in  life.  He  resembles 
the  wise  physician,  anxious  above  all  things  to  hold 
no  false  hopes  that  may  misguide  the  patient  and 
wreck  his  career;  reticent,  self-contained,  keen  in 
vision. 

And  yet  both  strove  to  interpret  at  once  the 
Hebrew  and  the  Greek  genius.  We  have 
"Bulaustion's  Adventures"  from  the  pen  of 
Browning,  and  Arnold's  prose  treatises  on  Isaiah 


8o  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

and  the  Psalms.  But  it  was  rather  as  an  admiring 
critic  than  as  one  wholly  in  sympathy,  even  for 
the  time  being,  with  Hebrew  ideals  that  Arnold 
wrote  concerning  biblical  events  and  characters; 
hence  he  chose  a  prose  medium  in  their  handling. 
Browning's  "A  Death  in  the  Desert"  has  an 
element  of  complete  poetic  absorption  in  the  treat- 
ment, which  demands  a  poetic  instead  of  a  prose 
form. 

No  investigation  of  a  literary  kind  would  be 
likely  to  produce  more  valuable  results  than  a 
comparison  between  Browning  and  Arnold  in 
respect  to  their  temperaments,  methods,  and 
principles  of  life.  Happily,  in  regard  to  their 
manner  of  life,  they  were  alike;  though  geniuses, 
they  were  well-bred,  honorable,  and  high-minded 
gentlemen;  as  Arnold  said  of  his  brother-in-law, 
W.  E.  Forster,  "  integer  vitae,  scelerisque  purus. " 

Both  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  and  Empedocles  are 
historic  names  used  for  poetic  interpretation 
rather  than  historic  personages.  The  real  Em- 
pedocles, so  far  as  we  can  speak  at  all  about  him, 
was  a  very  different  man  from  the  poet's  creation. 
Instead  of  advocating  the  calm  of  resignation,  as 
the  teaching  which  ought  to  be  enforced  by  the 
wise  man  who,  having  seen  life,  has  been  dis- 
illusioned, he  appears  to  have  been  somewhat 
of  a  popular  hero  with  a  craving  for  distinction. 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  81 

That  he  lost  his  life  through  an  act  of  vainglorious 
bravado  is  a  fable,  but  it  shows  how  he  has  been 
estimated.  The  following  are  the  facts  of  his 
career: 

Born  in  the  island  of  Sicily  in  the  fifth  century 
B.  C.,  in  the  flourishing  town  of  Agrigentum,  then 
a  formidable  rival  of  Syracuse,  he  espoused,  though 
himself  of  noble  birth,  the  cause  of  the  democratic 
party.  Like  all  early  philosophers,  he  spent 
much  of  his  time  in  traveling,  and  seems  to  have 
learned  in  the  East  something  of  magic  and  medi- 
cine. He  gained  a  wonderful  reputation  as  a 
prophet  and  miracle-worker,  and  assumed  a 
special  dress — priestly  garments,  a  golden  girdle, 
the  Delphic  crown.  Wherever  he  went  he  was  ac- 
companied by  a  train  of  attendants,  and  men  con- 
sidered him  divine.  His  death  being  wrapped 
in  mystery,  fables  grew  up  to  account  for  it. 
According  to  one  story,  he  was  drawn  up  to  heaven, 
like  Elijah,  immediately  after  some  sacred  celebra- 
tion. The  more  popular  version  pictured  him  as- 
having  flung  himself  into  the  crater  of  Mount 
Etna  in  order  that  he  might  pass  for  a  god;  but 
one  of  his  brazen  sandals  being  thrown  up 
revealed  the  secret. 

His  teaching  has  been  summed  up  thus  by 
George  Henry  Lewes:  He  recognized  two  prin- 
ciples, Love,  the  formative  principle,  and  Hate, 
6 


82  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

the  destructive.  Strife  is  the  parent  of  all  things; 
but  it  in  no  way  disturbs  the  abode  of  the  gods, 
and  operates  only  on  the  theater  of  the  world. 
For,  inasmuch  as  Man  is  a  fallen  and  perverted 
god,  doomed  to  wander  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
sky-aspiring  but  sense-clouded,  so  may  Hate  be 
only  perverted  Love  struggling  through  space. 
His  conception  of  God,  the  One,  was  that  of  a 
sphere  in  the  bosom  of  the  harmony  fixed  in  calm 
rest,  gladly  rejoicing.  This  quiescent  sphere, 
which  is  Love,  exists  above  and  around  the  moral 
world. 

We  find  in  the  whole  portraiture  of  the  man  no 
touch  of  that  world  melancholy,  that  lack  of 
blitheness,  which  characterizes  the  Empedocles 
of  Arnold's  hymn.  Indeed,  Arnold's  conception 
is  hardly  consistent  with  itself.  The  calm  lucidity 
of  the  hymn  yields  no  hint  of  that  pretentiousness 
in  dress  and  social  ambition  which  appear  later 
in  the  drama,  when,  in  a  passion  of  disgust  with 
humanity,  the  sage  throws  away  the  golden  circlet, 
the  purple  robe,  the  laurel  bough: 

This  envious,  miserable  ageJ 

I  am  weary  of  it. 

— Lie  there,  ye  ensigns 

Of  my  unloved  preeminence 

In  an  age  like  this! 

Among  a  people  of  children, 

Who  thronged  me  in  their  cities, 

Who  worshiped  me  in  their  houses, 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  83 

And  asked,  not  wisdom, 

But  drugs  to  charm  with, 

But  spells  to  mutter — 

All  the  fool's  armory  of  magic!     Lie  there, 

My  golden  circlet, 

My  purple  robe! 

The  Empedocles  of  the  hymn,  as  Arnold 
outlines  him,  is  a  calm,  impartial  diagnoser 
of  humanity  such  as  Goethe  was.  Man's 
intellect  critically  inspecting  humanity  —  what 
does  the  combination  give  us  ?  The  gods  are 
removed  and  apart;  the  sun  shines,  and  fortune 
smiles,  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust;  what  is 
immortal  and  invisible  may  be  set  aside  and 
neglected  because  of  its  uncertainty;  only  the 
intellect  and  society  remain.  Let  us  regulate 
our  desires  and  adjust  our  efforts  to  our  pos- 
sibilities: 

For  those  who  know 
Themselves,  who  wisely  take 
Their  way  through  life,  and  bow 

To  what  they  cannot  break, 

Why  should  I  say  that  life  need  yield  but  moderate 
bliss? 

In  Browning's  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra  "we  have  a 
personal  God  acting  immediately  on  the  human 
soul;  these  are  the  two  facts  of  existence.  The 
intellect  is  seemingly  neglected,  being  lumped  with 
the  bodily  powers,  and  the  perplexed  world  of 
nature  and  society  is  relegated  to  a  secondary 


84  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

place;  'tis  merely  Time's  wheel  which  runs  back 
or  stops — Potter  and  clay  endure : 

He  fixed  thee  'mid  this  dance 

Of  plastic  circumstance, 
This  Present,  thou,  forsooth,  would  fain  arrest: 

Machinery  just  meant 

To  give  thy  soul  its  bent, 
Try  thee  and  turn  thee  forth,  sufficiently  impressed. 

There  is  outlined  here,  as  ideal,  no  pyramid  of 
life,  complete  and  stately  and  statesmanlike,  such 
as  Goethe  dreamed  of  and  Arnold  hankered  after. 
"The  desire,"  wrote  the  German  Lavater,  "to 
raise  the  pyramid  of  my  existence — the  base  of 
which  is  already  laid — as  high  as  possible  in  the 
air  absorbs  every  other  desire  and  scarcely  ever 
quits  me."  Immortality  thus  ceases  to  be  an 
immediate  issue;  it  is  neglected  as  remote,  with 
few  bearings  on  present  conduct;  in  the  words  of 
the  hymn : 

Is  it  so  small  a  thing 

To  have  enjoyed  the  sun — 

That  we  must  feign  a  bliss 

Of  doubtful  future  date, 
And,  while  we  dream  on  this, 

Lose  all  our  present  state, 
And  relegate  to  worlds  yet  distant  our  repose? 

Here  Arnold's  philosophic  self  is  speaking — we 
feel  it  to  be  so.  It  is  Goethe's  teaching — he  who 
was  so  cold  toward  these  aspirations  after  eternal 
personal  life.  "Empedocles  on  Etna"  is  in  many 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  85 

respects  a  puzzle.  Classic  in  treatment,  and 
containing  several  passages  which  are  often  quoted 
as  typically  Grecian,  yet  the  general  feeling 
throughout  is  modern.  This  is  especially  true 
of  the  hymn,  where  the  topics  taken  up  by  the 
sage  are  such  as  appeal  to  our  immediate  interests. 
But  it  is  certainly  not  a  suitable  preliminary  argu- 
ment to  an  act  of  suicide,  as  dramatically  it 
ought  to  be.  The.  advice  given  by  the  lyrist 
would  rather  lead  to  wholly  different  conduct 
on  the  speaker's  part — to  the  calm  of  resignation. 
Suicide,  we  feel,  should  naturally  be  dubbed  by 
him  rank  cowardice,  worthy  of  "one  of  the  world's 
poor,  routed  leavings,  who  had  failed  under  the 
heat  of  this  life's  death";  unworthy  of  the 
wise  adviser  who  declares  in  the  closing  stanza : 

I  say:  Fear  not!     Life  still 

Leaves  human  effort  scope. 
But,  since  life  teems  with  ill, 

Nurse  no  extravagant  hope ; 

Because  thou  must  not  dream,  thou  need'st  not  then 
despair! 

In  the  opening  stanzas  we  have  emphasized 
the  huge  machinery  of  the  world,  and  the  helpless- 
ness of  man  to  do  more  than  appreciate  the  vast- 
ness.  Man  is  portrayed  as  a  mere  pendant, 
who  is  permitted  to  peep  at  the  spectacle  of 
"eternal  process  moving  on,"  but  has  nothing 
to  dowith  carrying  out  the  arrangements.  We 


86  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

remember  Pascal's  profound  saying  in  regard 
to  the  satisfaction  afforded  by  prayer — that  man 
thereby  gets  strengthened  by  feeling  himself  to 
be  a  cause  of  things :  "Why  has  God  given  man 
prayer,  and  bidden  him  use  it  ? — To  leave  him 
the  dignity  of  causality." 

In  the  third  stanza  we  find  emphasized  the 
deficiency  so  present  in  Goethe's  constitution,  and 
appearing  in  a  less  degree  in  Arnold's — the  lack 
of  the  element  of  complete  personal  trust.  The 
elements  do  indeed  baffle  us,  and  play  and  sport 
with  us,  but  the  Power  which  controls  them  is 
a  loving  personality,  in  sympathy  with  his  crea- 
tures. The  idea  of  a  supernatural  Power  so 
deficient  in  sympathy  as  to  laugh  at  man's  inabil- 
ity to  solve  the  puzzle  of  existence  is  pagan  and 
early  Hebrew,  and  may  suit  Arnold's  philosophic 
portraiture;  but  it  is  both  unchristian  and 
repulsive: 

The  gods  laugh  in  their  sleeve 

To  watch  man  doubt  and  fear, 
Who  knows  not  what  to  believe 

Since  he  sees  nothing  clear, 
And  dares  stamp  nothing  false  where  he  finds  nothing  sure. 

The  next  two  stanzas  are  a  Stoic  protest  against 
a  philosophy  of  necessitarianism  or  determinism. 
Empedocles  asserts  that,  even  if  it  be  granted 
that  freedom  of  the  will  is  dubious  and  difficult 
of  proof,  yet  it  is  better  to  assume  it  as  a  basis 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  87 

of  action.  Otherwise  man's  personality  is  weak- 
ened and  degraded: 

And  can  our  souls  not  strive, 
But  with  the  winds  must  go, 

And  hurry  where  they  drive  ? 
Is  fate  indeed  so  strong,  man's  strength  indeed  so  poor? 

The  speaker  refuses  to  give  a  definite  answer  to 
the  philosophic  question;  he  will  confine  himself 
to  conduct: 

I  will  not  judge.     That  man, 

Howbeit,  I  judge  as  lost 
Whose  mind  allows  a  plan 

Which  would  degrade  it  most; 
And  he  treats  doubt  the  best  who  tries  to  see  least  ill. 

Then  follows  a  piece  of  Arnold's  favorite  teach- 
ing, which  he  preached  in  season  and  out  of  sea- 
son. The  unfortunate  thing  about  miracles, 
he  insists,  is  that  they  do  not  happen;  moreover, 
they  distract  men's  minds  from  practical  and  ex- 
perimental religion.  Arnold  was  very  impatient 
with  those  who,  while  conceding  on  their  own 
part,  and  demanding  from  others,  a  complete  be- 
lief in  all  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  yet  swiftly 
and  uncompromisingly  reject  all  other  miracles 
whatsoever.  He  regarded  it  as  an  attitude  diffi- 
cult of  rational  defense,  and  shutting  out  good 
orthodox  Christians  from  wholesome  sympathy 
with  religious  peoples  of  other  communions. 
Why  impose  such  arbitrary  limits  on  miraculous 


88  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

agency,  he  continued,  if  it  be  indeed  conceded 
as  an  historical  reality  ?  In  some  respects  these 
sixth  and  following  stanzas  of  the  hymn  may 
be  regarded  as  of  prime  importance  in  the  poem, 
as  calling  upon  the  modern  Christian  to  put  him- 
self in  the  place  of  a  good  Greek  who  had  no 
use  for  thaumaturgy  and  Oriental  marvels: 

Ask  not  the  latest  news  of  the  last  miracle, 
Ask  not  what  days  and  nights 

In  trance  Pantheia  lay, 
But  ask  how  thou  such  sights 

May'st  see  without  dismay; 
Ask  what  most  helps  when  known,  thou  son  of  Anchitus! 

This  teaching  was  later  expanded  into  a  novel 
by  the  poet's  niece,  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  whose 
"Robert  Elsmere"  was  a  nine  days'  wonder,  and 
enjoyed  an  extraordinary  popularity,  some  fifteen 
years  ago.  Its  burden  is,  "  Miracles  do  not 
happen." 

To-day  a  cautious  and  well-informed  science 
makes  no  such  peremptory  statements  regarding 
miracles.  A  recent  commentator  on  Arnold — 
Mr.  W.  H.  Dawson — quotes  from  the  scientific 
veteran,  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  writing  so  recently 
as  March,  1903,  in  that  very  critical  journal, 
The  Fortnightly  Review:  "Although  these 
[recent]  discoveries  have,  of  course,  no  bearing 
upon  the  special  theological  dogmas  of  the  Chris- 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP 


tian  or  of  any  other  religion,  they  do  tend  to  show 
that  our  position  in  the  material  universe  is  special 
and  probably  unique,  and  that  it  is  such  as  to 
lend  support  to  the  view,  held  by  many  great 
thinkers  and  writers  of  to-day,  that  the  supreme 
end  and  purpose  of  this  vast  universe  was  the 
production  and  development  of  the  living  soul 
in  the  perishable  body  of  man."  Mr.  Dawson 
also  quotes  from  the  Cambridge  poet  and  philoso- 
pher, F.  W.  H.  Myers,  Henry  Sidgwick's  friend, 
who  died  recently:  "In  consequence  of  the  new 
evidence  all  reasonable  men  a  century  hence 
will  believe  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  whereas, 
in  default  of  the  new  evidence,  no  reasonable  men 
a  century  hence  would  have  believed  it. "  Arnold's 
"Nature"  and  "principles  of  verification,"  indeed, 
belong  to  a  bygone  era,  and  in  these  matters  we 
can  leave  him  in  company  with  his  Greek  mouth- 
piece. 

At  stanza  eleven  we  have  the  "double  self" 
described,  that  striking  development  of  our  mod- 
ern civilization: 

And  we  feel,  day  and  night, 

The  burden  of  ourselves — 
Well,  then,  the  wiser  wight 

In  his  own  bosom  delves, 
And  asks  what  ails  him  so,  and  gets  what  cure  he  can. 

Keen  and  poignant  as  have  been  the  agonies 
of  this  self-examination,  yet  the  result  has  been 


go  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

much  earnest  moral  work.  The  recommenda- 
tion comes  in  the  following  stanza: 

The  sophist  sneers,  "Fool,  take 

Thy  pleasure,  right  or  wrong." 
The  pious  wail,  "Forsake 

A  world  these  sophists  throng." 
Be  neither  saint-  nor  sophist-led,  but  be  a  man! 

In  stanza  thirteen  we  have  Emerson's  teaching 
that  the  truth  preached  by  all  the  sects  is  but 
the  same  as  that  possessed  by  every  man: 

These  hundred  doctors  try 

To  preach  thee  to  their  school. 
"We  have  the  truth!"  they  cry; 

And  yet  their  oracle, 
Trumpet  it  as  they  will,  is  but  the  same  as  thine. 

And  it  is  followed  in  stanza  fourteen  by  a 
metrical  exposition  of  Goethe's  favorite  theme — 
"the  harmony  of  a  universally  experienced 


nature" 


Once  read  thy  own  breast  right 

And  thou  hast  done  with  fears ; 
Man  gets  no  other  light, 

Search  he  a  thousand  years. 
Sink  in  thyself!  there  ask  what  ails  thee,  at  that  shrine! 

Three  stanzas  further  on  the  singer  touches 
upon  the  striking  fallacy  of  the  present  era,  the 
identification  of  pain  with  evil — a  fallacy  which 
springs  out  of  that  vaguest  of  phrases,  yet  one 
most  potent  in  political  influence,  the  "  rights  of 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  91 

man."  Here  it  takes  the  form  of  the  inherent 
right  of  a  man  to  enjoy  happiness  in  this  life: 

Could'st   thou,    Pausanias,   learn 

How  deep  a  fault  is  this  ; 
Could'st  thou  but  once  discern 

Thou  hast  no  right  to  bliss; 
No  title  from  the  gods  to  welfare  and  repose. 

Man  is  apt  to  forget  that  he  is  not  completely 
his  own,  self-determined  and  self-regulated: 

To  tunes  we  did  not  call,  our  being  must  keep  chime. 

If  a  man  would  obtain  even  moderate  bliss,  and 
he  is  justified  in  seeking  it,  he  must  discipline 
himself  painfully: 

<g>  \  We  would  have  health,  and  yet 

Still  use  our  bodies  ill ; 

Bafflers  of  our  own  prayers,  from  youth  to  life's  last 
scene. 


We  would  have  inward  peace, 

' 


We  will  not  look  within ; 
We  would  have  misery  cense, 

Yet  will  not  cease  from  sin ; 
We  want  all  pleasant  ends,  but  will  use  no  harsh  means. 

And  good  people  grow  peevish  when  troubles 
come  upon  them,  as  if  the  powers  above  specially 
shielded  the  pious  from  harm;  but 

\  Streams  will  not  curb  their  pride 

The  just  man  not  to  entomb, 
Nor  lightnings  go  aside 

To  give  his  virtues  room; 

Nor  is  that  wind  less  rough  which  blows  a  good  man's 
barge. 


- 

92  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

At  stanza  fifty-five  the  poet  bluntly  refuses 
to  accept  the  argument  that  the  existence  of  wishes 
and  concepts  proves  the  reality  of  these  concepts 
— the  Cartesian  method  of  proving  the  existence 
of  God;  of  that  perfection  which  we,  who  are 
finite  and  limited,  can  conceive  clearly  and  dis- 
tinctly, but  cannot  comprehend  or  attain  to: 

Fools!     That  in  man's  brief  term 

He  cannot  all  things  view, 
Affords  no  ground  to  affirm 

That  there  are  gods  who  do ; 
Nor  does  being  weary  prove  that  he  has  where  to  rest. 

Here  Arnold's  limited  and  arbitrary  conception 
of  Nature  stands  in  the  way  of  a  just  appreciation 
of  verification  through  the  needs  and  claims  of 
personality.  In  the  words  of  his  doubting  friend, 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough: 

And  yet,  when  all  is  thought  and  said, 
The  heart  still  overrules  the  head ; 
Still  what  we  hope  we  must  believe, 
And  what  is  given  us  receive ; 

Must  still  believe,  for  still  we  hope 
That  in  a  world  of  larger  scope 
What  here  is  faithfully  begun 
Will  be  completed,  not  undone. 

In  stanzas  sixty  and  sixty-one  the  miserable 
delusion  is  ridiculed  of  passing  the  best  part  of 
our  lives  in  the  pursuit  of  selfish  pleasures  and 
then,  when  appetite  fails  and  pleasures  pall,  of 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP  93 

offering  the  dregs  of  ourselves  as  a  libation  to  the 
gods — the  fallacy  of  "young  sinner,  old  saint": 

(  We  pause  ;  we  hush  our  heart, 

And  thus  address  the  gods: 
"The  world  hath  failed  to  impart 

The  joy  our  youth  forebodes, 

Failed  to  fill  up  the  void  which  in  our  breasts  we  bear. 
"Changeful  till  now,  we  still 

Looked  on  to  something  new; 
Let  us,  with  changeless  will, 

Henceforth  look  on  to  you, 

To  find  with  you  the  joy  we  in  vain  here  require!" 
Fools!     .     .     . 

In  two  of  the  stanzas  immediately  succeeding 
we  seem  to  hear  Arnold  enunciate  his  own  cheer- 
ful, amiable,  man-of-the-world  creed: 

-,  And  yet,  for  those  who  know 

Themselves,  who  wisely  take 
Their  way  through  life,  and  bow 

To  what  they  cannot  break, 
Why  should  I  say  that  life  need  yield  but  moderate  bliss? 

£  Is  it  so  small  a  thing 

To  have  enjoyed  the  sun, 
To  have  lived  light  in  the  spring, 

To  have  loved,  to  have  thought,  to  have  done; 
To  have  advanced  true  friends,  and  beat  down  baffling 
foes? 

In  stanza  sixty-six,  which  follows,  there  is  a 
Goethe-like  warning  against  cherishing  roseate 
hopes  of  future  bliss  in  a  remote  heaven,  by  which 
we  are  apt  to 

Lose  all  our  pleasant  state, 
And  relegate  to  worlds  yet  distant  our  repose. 


94  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Then  follows  a  short  idyllic  picture  of  the  village 
churl,  as  a  person  to  be  envied  in  his  simple 
happiness.  The  closing  stanza,  the  seventieth, 
gives  all  the  comfort  that  can  be  given  by  a  dis- 
appointed man  to  those  asking  for  advice: 

Nurse  no  extravagant  hope; 

Because  thou  must  not  dream,  thou  need'st  not  then 
despair! 

"Empedocles  on  Etna"  was  one  of  Arnold's 
earlier  poems,  published  anonymously  under  the 
name  "A";  and,  although  it  gave  the  title  to 
the  volume,  he  omitted  it  in  the  first  collection 
of  his  poems  under  his  own  name.  His  reasons 
were  based  on  dissatisfaction  with  its  lack  of 
dramatic  movement.  Browning,  however,  highly 
esteemed  the  piece,  and  induced  him  to  insert  it 
in  a  later  issue  of  poems.  The  author  expressly 
disclaims,  in  his  Letters,  an  intention  to  identify 
himself  with  the  beliefs  and  opinions  enunciated 
in  such  creations  as  "Empedocles"  and  "Ober- 
mann,"  where  he  speaks  through  a  mask:  "The 
Contemporary  Review,  the  Christian  World,  and 
other  similar  periodicals  fix  on  the  speeches  of 
Empedocles  and  Obermann,  and  calmly  say, 
dropping  all  mention  of  the  real  speakers,  *Mr. 
Arnold  here  professes  his  Pantheism/  or,  'Mr. 
Arnold  here  disowns  Christianity.'  However, 
the  religious  world  is  in  so  unsettled  a  state  that 


THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  CUP          '  95 

this  sort  of  thing  does  not  do  the  harm  it  would 
have  done  two  years  ago."  The  pity  is,  they 
contain  far  less  that  is  painful  to  orthodoxy  than 
the  theological  utterances  to  be  found  in  his  prose 
treatises;  while  as  an  intellectual  cold  water 
"shower  bath"  they  are  distinctly  more  stimu- 
lating. 

The  poem,  however,  which  must  be  regarded  as 
a  direct  negative  to  the  serene,  expansive  optimism 
of  Browning's  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra"  is  Arnold's 
"Growing  Old,"  where  the  poet  surely  succeeds 
in  giving  an  ordinary  reader  a  fit  of  "the  shivers": 

What  is  it  to  grow  old? 

Is  it  to  lose  the  glory  of  the  form, 

The  luster  of  the  eye? 

Is  it  for  beauty  to  forgo  her  wreath? 

— Yes,  but  not^this  alone. 

Is  it  to  feel  our  strength — 

Not  our  bloom  only,  but  our  strength—decay? 

Is  it  to  feel  each  limb 

Grow  stiffer,  every  function  less  exact, 

Each  nerve  more  loosely  strung? 

It  is  to  spend  long  days 

And  not  once  feel  that  we  were  ever  young; 

It  is  to  add,  immured 

In  the  hot  prison  of  the  present,  month 

To  month  with  weary  pain. 

It  is — last  stage  of  all — 

When  we  are  frozen  up  within,  and  quite 

The  phantom  of  ourselves, 

To  hear  the  world  applaud  the  hollow  ghost, 

Which  blamed  the  living  man. 


96  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

This  is  in  truth  the  poetry  of  disillusion  car- 
ried to  its  limits;  and  a  very  excellent  tonic  to  the 
enthusiastic  glow  of  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  if  a  tonic 
be  needed.  Dramatically,  it  would  agree  better 
with  the  mood  of  Empedocles,  who,  when  his 
song  was  ended,  plunged  into  the  crater;  thus 
shattering  his  outworn  and  dingy  mirror — the 
"gusty  toy." 


CHAPTER   V 

ARNOLD'S   SYMPATHY  WITH    THE   BRUTE 
CREATION 

THE  relation  of  animals  to  man  is  treated 
very  sweetly  and  sympathetically  in  the  poems 
of  Matthew  Arnold;  and  one  fault  I  have  to  find 
in  the  otherwise  excellent  pocket  edition  of 
his  works  published  in  the  Golden  Treasury 
series  is  that  it  fails  to  give  a  corner  to  these 
animal  poems.  The  Christian  world  in  the  past 
few  centuries  has  grown  much  more  tender  to 
dumb  creatures,  and  is  beginning  to  recognize 
duties  and  responsibilities  undreamed  of  before. 
Dumb  creatures  can  teach  us  many  deep  lessons 
in  life.  We  find  this  genial  social  current  at  its 
strongest  and  best  in  Arnold. 

There  is  but  little  in  the  Scriptures  to  draw  us 
close  to  animals,  with  the  single  exception  of  the 
lamb.  And  even  the  loving  scriptural  use  of  the 
lamb,  in  analogy,  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  used  sacrificially.  All  throughout  the  life 
of  the  chosen  people,  indeed,  the  sheep  was  cher- 
ished and  valued,  for  it  represented  to  them  not 
only  helplessness,  but  also  meekness,  patience, 
and  submission.  It  is  a  mistake,  however,  to 
suppose  that  the  goat  or  kid  was  despised  as  com- 

7  97 


98  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

pared  with  the  sheep  or  lamb.  In  Prov.  30.  31, 
the  he-goat  is  referred  to  as  one  who  is  stately 
in  march,  for  he  was  in  the  habit  of  leading  the 
combined  flock;  and  so  he  became  typical  of  the 
princes  of  the  people:  "There  be  three  things 
which  go  well,  yea,  four  are  comely  in  going:  a 
lion  which  is  strongest  among  beasts,  and  turneth 
not  away  for  any;  a  greyhound;  an  he-goat  also; 
and  a  king,  against  whom  there  is  no  rising  up." 
And  so  in  Zechariah:  "Mine  anger  was  kindled 
against  the  shepherds,  and  I  punished  the  goats;" 
that  is,  the  leaders.  And  Isaiah  speaks  of  the 
he-goats  of  the  earth,  the  kings  of  the  nations, 
rising  up  from  their  thrones. 

We  must  be  on  our  guard,  then,  against  miscon- 
ceiving the  language  of  our  Lord  in  Matt.  25.  32, 
where  he  speaks  of  the  blessed  being  separated 
from  the  accursed  as  the  sheep  are  separated 
from  the  goats  (or  rather  kids):  "And  before 
him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations:  and  he  shall 
separate  them  one  from  another,  as  a  shepherd 
divideth  his  sheep  from  the  goats:  and  he  shall 
set  the  sheep  on  his  right  hand,  but  the  goats  on 
the  left."  This  passage  ought  not  to  be  inter- 
preted too  absolutely.  We  know  that  a  meta- 
phor does  not  go  on  all  fours,  and  here  the  analogy 
should  be  limited  to  the  act  of  separation — famil- 
iar to  those  living  in  a  pastoral  country  like  Pales- 


SYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION         99 

tine,  where  goats  and  sheep  herd  together;  but 
even  while  awaiting  the  filling  of  the  trough 
they  instinctively  range  themselves  apart.  Our 
Lord's  language  does  not  imply  that  the  kids  are 
either  less  valuable  or  less  mild  and  tractable  than 
the  lambs.  And  yet,  with  that  tendency  to 
antithesis  which  at  certain  periods  of  history  has 
been  excessive,  the  goat  has  been  degraded,  and 
his  name  despised,  as  if  he  were  a  type  of  the 
sinner.  Did  Matthew  Arnold  in  his  beautiful  son- 
net "The  Good  Shepherd  with  the  Kid"  read 
later  views  into  the  symbolism  ?  Was  the  kid 
meant  really  to  represent  the  child  of  a  sinner? 
Possibly  the  symbolism  of  early  Christianity 
had  already  come  to  this  antithesis  by  the  time 
of  Tertullian,  at  the  close  of  the  second  century. 

THE  GOOD  SHEPHERD  WITH  THE  KID 

He  saves  the  sheep,  the  goats  he  doth  not  save! 
So  rang  Tertullian's  sentence,  on  the  side 
Of  that  unpitying  Phrygian  sect  which  cried, 

"  Him  can  no  fount  of  fresh  forgiveness  lave, 
Who  sins,  once  washed  by  the  baptismal  wave. " 
So  spake  the  fierce  Tertullian.     But  she  sighed, 
The  infant  Church!  of  love  she  felt  the  tide 

Stream  on  her  from  her  Lord's  yet  recent  grave. 

And  then  she  smiled ;  and  in  the  Catacombs, 
With  eye  suffused  but  heart  inspired  true, 

On  those  walls  subterranean,  where  she  hid 

Her  head  'mid  ignominy,  death,  and  tombs, 

She  her  Good  Shepherd's  hasty  image  drew — 

And  on  his  shoulders,  not  a  lamb,  a  kid. 


TOO  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

To  turn  to  other  animals  mentioned  in  the 
Scriptures.  The  Oriental  dog  to  this  day  is 
pretty  much  of  a  cur.  If  we  enter  Asia  from  the 
West,  we  find  Mohammedan  intolerance  express- 
ing itself  in  terms  of  this  useful  animal.  "Dog  of 
a  Christian!"  is  the  Moslem's  favorite  epithet. 
And  the  dog  in  Mohammedan  towns  and  cities 
is  a  scavenger,  unmannerly  and  unclean.  If  we 
approach  Asia  from  the  East,  matters  are  still  not 
satisfactory.  The  Japanese  dog  is  an  ungainly, 
half-wolfish  animal,  and  the  other  breeds  which 
have  been  introduced  are  allowed  to  mul- 
tiply to  an  unseemly  degree;  for  the  Buddhist 
dislike  of  the  shedding  of  blood  prevents  a  proper 
supervision  and  weeding  out  of  the  worthless 
and  unnecessary.  In  the  Old  Testament  the 
type  of  dog  most  frequently  referred  to — and 
there  are  only  about  thirty  cases  of  such  refer- 
ence— is  the  unclean  pariah  dog.  The  phrase 
"dead  dog"  should  indeed  be  translated  "pa- 
riah dog." 

In  the  New  Testament  a  new  note  is  struck  in 
Matt.  15. 27,  where  the  Syrophoenician  woman 
pleads  for  kinder  treatment:  "It  is  not  meet," 
remarked  our  Lord,  "to  take  the  children's  bread, 
and  cast  it  to  dogs."  And  she  said,  "Truth,  Lord: 
yet  the  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fall  from  their 
masters'  table."  Here  we  seem  to  touch  Roman 


SYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION        101 

life  and  habits,  and  a  friendlier  relationship  with 
the  canine  tribe — the  beginnings  of  the  modern 
attitude. 

With  the  teaching  of  Augustine  came  an 
unfriendly  attitude  toward  all  kinds  of  animals, 
however  harmless.  The  way  to  heaven  was  sup- 
posed to  be  in  the  path  of  sense-subjection,  with 
the  animal  in  mankind  trampled  under  foot. 
Saint  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  greatest  of  the  School- 
men, while  allowing  a  soul  to  animals,  declared 
that  the  sensitive  soul  in  the  lower  animals  is 
corruptible;  while  in  man,  since  it  is  the  same  in 
substance  as  the  rational  soul,  it  is  incorruptible. 
The  kindly  attitude  toward  the  dumb  creation 
of  the  saintly  Francis  d'Assisi  is  one  of  the  bright 
spots  in  the  social  history  of  the  Dark  Ages.  On 
one  occasion,  as  he  was  on  a  preaching  tour,  the 
birds  flocked  around  him  as  if  to  bid  him 
welcome.  "Brother  birds,"  was  his  salutation, 
"you  ought  to  praise  and  love  your  Creator  very 
much.  He  has  given  you  feathers  for  clothing, 
wings  for  flying,  and  all  that  is  needful  for  you.  He 
has  made  you  the  noblest  of  all  his  creatures;  he 
permits  you  to  live  in  the  pure  air;  you  have 
neither  to  sow  nor  to  reap,  and  yet  he  takes  care 
of  you."  Whereat  the  birds  arched  their  necks, 
spread  out  their  wings,  opened  their  beaks,  as  if  to 
thank  him,  while  he  went  up  and  down  among 


102  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

them  and  stroked  them  with  the  border  of  his 
tunic,  at  length  sending  them  away  with  his  bless- 
ing. On  another  occasion,  as  he  preached  in  the 
open  air,  the  swallows  chirped  so  loudly  as  to 
drown  his  voice.  'Tis  my  turn  to  speak,  sister 
swallows,"  he  expostulated;  "be  quiet,  and  wait 
till  I  have  finished." 

This  friendly  tone  is  absent  from  the  pages  of 
"The  Imitation  of  Christ,"  with  all  its  beauty;  for 
example,  "If  thy  heart  were  right  with  God,  all 
creatures  would  be  for  thee  a  mirror  of  life,  and  a 
volume  of  holy  doctrines. "  This  is  sermonizing, 
not  the  language  of  the  heart.  Saint  Francis  was 
a  living  example  of  Coleridge's  teaching: 

He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small. 

Coleridge  does  not  mean  that  kindness  is  an 
equivalent  for  prayer,  but  that  the  prayerful 
spirit  is  essentially  the  loving  spirit.  Pharisaic  piety 
is  not  really  prayerful.  Arnold  held  Saint  Francis 
in  the  highest  honor,  as  a  figure  of  magical  power 
and  charm,  esteeming  his  century,  the  thirteenth, 
as  "the  most  interesting  in  the  history  of  Chris- 
tianity after  its  primitive  age,  more  interesting 
than  even  the  century  of  the  Reformation";  and 
the  interest,  he  adds,  centers  chiefly  in  Saint 
Francis.  He  it  was  who  brought  religion  home 


SYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION       103 

he  hearts  of  the  people,  and  "founded  the 
most  popular  body  of  ministers  of  religion  that 
has  ever  existed  in  the  church." 

Saint  Francis,  finding  prose  too  tame  a  me- 
dium for  the  outpouring  of  his  spirit,  threw  his 
meditations  into  poetry,  and  has  left  us  a  "Can- 
ticle of  the  Creatures,"  which  Arnold  translates 
for  us  in  his  essay  entitled  "  Pagan  and  Mediae- 
val Religious  Sentiment."  Artless  in  language 
and  irregular  in  rhythm,  this  canticle  was  intended 
for  popular  use: 

O  most  high,  almighty,  good  Lord  God,  to  thee  belong 
praise,  glory,  honor,  and  all  blessing! 

Praised  be  my  Lord  God  with  an  his  creatures;  and 
especially  our  brother  the  sun,  who  brings  us  the  day,  and 
who  brings  us  the  light;  fair  is  he,  and  shining  with  a  very 
great  splendor:  O  Lord,  he  signifies  to  us  thee! 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  the  moon,  and  for  the 
stars,  the  which  he  has  set  clear  and  lovely  in  heaven. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  brother  the  wind,  and  for  air 
and  cloud,  calms  and  all  weather,  by  the  which  thou 
upholdest  in  fife  all  creatures. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  water,  who  is  very  serv- 
iceable tmtft  us.  *™\  humble  aw|  precious  aiyj  rVi"1- 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  brother  fire,  through  whom 
thou  givest  us  fight  in  the  darkness;  and  he  is  bright,  and 
pleasant,  and  very  mighty,  and  strong. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  mother  the  Earth,  the  which 
doth  sustain  us  and  keep  us,  and  bringeth  forth  divers  fruits, 
and  flowers  of  many  colors,  and  grass. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  afl  those  who  pardon  one  another 
for  his  love's  sake,  and  who  endure  weakness  and  tribulation; 
blessed  are  they  who  peaceably  shall  endure,  for  thou,  O 
most  highest,  shah  give  them  a  crown.1 


IO4  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister  the  death  of  the  body, 
from  whom  no  man  escapeth.  Woe  to  him  who  dieth  in 
mortal  sin!  Blessed  are  they  who  are  found  walking  by  thy 
most  holy  will,  for  the  second  death  shall  have  no  power  to  do 
them  harm. 

Praise  ye,  and  bless  ye  the  Lord,  and  give  thanks  unto 
him,  and  serve  him  with  great  humility. 

Comparing  this  hymn  with  another  hymn  he 
had  rendered  from  the  Greek  of  the  Sicilian 
Theocritus,  Arnold  remarks  how  the  first  admits 
just  as  much  of  the  world  as  is  pleasure-giving; 
while  the  second  "admits  the  whole  world,  rough 
and  smooth,  painful  and  pleasure-loving,  all 
alike  but  all  transfigured  by  the  power  of  a 
spiritual  emotion,  all  brought  under  a  law  of 
supersensual  love,  having  its  seat  in  the  soul. 
It  can  thus  even  say,  'Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our 
sister  the  death  of  the  body.9  ' 

How  unconventional  was  Saint  Francis!  The 
prudish  monks  of  his  time  would  not  allow  even 
the  females  of  animals  to  enter  the  precincts  of 
their  monasteries;  but  one  day  when  at  Siena  he 
asked  for  some  turtledoves,  and  thus  addressed 
them:  "Little  sister  turtledoves,  you  are  simple, 
innocent,  and  chaste;  why  did  you  let  yourselves 
be  caught  ?  I  shall  save  you  from  death,  and 
have  nests  made  for  you,  so  that  you  may  bring 
forth  young,  and  multiply  according  to  the 
commandment  of  our  Creator. "  Again  when,  at 


SYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION       105 

Greccio,  they  brought  him  a  young  hare  which 
had  been  caught  in  a  trap,  "Come  to  me,  brother 
feveret,"  he  said;  and  when  the  poor  thing,  being 
set  free,  approached  him,  he  took  it  up,  caressed 
it,  and  then  laid  it  down  that  it  might  run  off; 
but  it  returned  to  him  again  and  again,  so  that  he 
had  to  take  it  himself  to  the  woods. 

We  notice  at  this  period  a  general  growing 
attachment  to  dogs.  A  proverb  comes  to  us  from 
the  time  of  Saint  Bernard,  "Qui  me  amat,  amet 
et  canem  meum,"  which  old  Heywood,  before 
Shakespeare's  time,  translated,  "Love  me,  love 
my  dog. " 

The  kinship  had  grown  close  by  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  story  is  told  of  Luther  that  when 
his  dog  Hans  was  angrily  growling  he  soothed 
him  with  the  words,  "Don't  growl,  little  Hans; 
you  too  will  go  to  heaven  and  have  a  little  golden 
tail  to  wag."  We  see,  therefore,  that  dogs  had 
now  names  and  individuality;  a  fact  which  comes 
out  in  Shakespeare's  "Lear"  pathetically: 

The  little  dogs  and  all, 
Tray,  Blanch,  and  Sweetheart,  see,  they  bark  at  me. 

So  complains  the  afflicted  king. 

A  century  later  Newton  and  his  dog  Diamond 
come  on  the  scene.  The  household  pet  had 
chanced  to  overturn  a  candle  on  his  master's 
table,  whereby  some  important  papers  were  re- 


106  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

duced  to  ashes.  "Ah!  Diamond,  Diamond,  thou 
little  knowest  the  damage  thou  hast  done,"  was  all 
the  amiable  sage  could  say  in  reproof. 

Descartes  had  carried  his  dualism  of  mind  and 
matter  to  such  an  extreme  ^  that,  in  the  face  of 
common  sense,  he  denied  real  feelings  to  animals, 
and  declared  they  were  mere  automata.  Leibnitz, 
who  was  four  years  old  when  Descartes  died,  and 
the  contemporary  of  Newton,  refused  to  accept 
such  a  doctrine;  but  while  he  claimed  for  animals 
the  immaterial  principle  of  sensitive  life,  which 
has  a  continuity  apart  from  matter,  yet  he  held 
that  we  must  not  confound  with  other  forms, 
or  souls,  minds  or  rational  souls  which  are  of  a 
higher  rank,  and  resemble  little  gods,  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  and  having  within  them  some  ray 
of  the  divine  enlightenment.  For  this  reason 
God  governs  minds  as  a  father  looks  after  his 
children;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  deals  with 
other  substances  as  an  engineer  works  with  his 
machine. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  both 
in  Protestant  and  Catholic  countries,  animals 
were  but  little  esteemed.  The  doctrine  of  innate 
human  depravity  leaves  but  meager  possibilities 
for  poor  brutes.  A  high  sacramentarian  of  the 
time  of  Queen  Anne  actually  taught  that  infants 
are  mortal  like  the  brutes  until  they  are  baptized ! 


JYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION       107 

The  great  metaphysician  Samuel  Clarke,  of 
Norwich,  to  whom  Bishop  Butler  owed  so  much, 
taking  a  higher  view  of  human  nature  than  this 
ultra-Augustinian,  much  preferred  to  allow  the 
possibility  of  immortality  to  the  brute  creation 
rather  than  to  deny  to  man  an  immortal  soul  at 
birth.  Joseph  Butler  was  of  the  same  mind, 
greatly  to  the  surprise  and  disgust  of  many  good 
people;  and  John  Wesley,  with  a  largeness  of 
mind  that  does  not  surprise  close  readers  of  his 
Journal,  did  not  disagree  with  the  good  bishop. 
The  time  had  gone  by  when  a  philosopher  might 
assert  that  he  could  not  have  discovered  that 
infants  possessed  souls,  but  for  the  later  develop- 
ment they  showed  as  adults.  This  fallacy  was 
largely  due  to  the  old  overemphasis  of  the 
intellectual  in  man,  of  the  purely  discursive 
reason. 

It  is  in  the  poems  and  letters  of  Cowper,  Gray, 
and  Burns  that  we  first  find  animal  friendships 
made  the  theme  of  serious  treatment.  Burns 
rises  to  his  highest  when  he  takes  to  his  heart  a 
poor  sheep  like  Mailie,  or  a  dog  like  Luath,  or  a 
nameless  field  mouse.  Why,  asks  he,  of  the  wee 
mousie,  whose  little  biggin  he  had  unwittingly 
demolished,  why  should  you  startle 

At  me,  thy  poor  earthborn  companion 

And  fellow  mortal? 


io8  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

And  so  dear  was  Mailie  to  his  heart  that  we 
feel  that  the  Elegy,  with  its  mock-heroics,  would 
never  have  been  written  had  the  poor  sheep 
really  been  cruelly  killed  before  her  time.  The 
fact  is,  Mailie  was  rescued  in  time  by  her  kind 
master  and  friend. 

In  the  century  which  intervened  between  the 
writing  of  Burns's  "To  a  Field  Mouse"  and  Mat- 
thew Arnold's  "Geist's  Grave"  there  is  nothing 
similar  in  literature  of  equal  pathos,  at  least  in 
poetry.  Perhaps  Dr.  Brown's  immortal  "Rab 
and  His  Friends"  should  not  be  forgotten.  The 
tributes  to  canine  fidelity  in  Scott  and  Words- 
worth are  not  in  the  same  category.  Sir  Wal- 
ter's attachment  to  Maida  was  part  of  his  life, 
and  he  brings  this  close  relationship  between  man 
and  beast  into  his  "Guy  Mannering,"  in  his 
sympathetic  treatment  of  Dandie  Dinmont  and 
the  four  eager  terriers.  But  the  treatment  re- 
mains objective,  and  does  not  enter  into  the 
psychology  of  the  relationship. 

The  pretty  little  dachshund  Geist,  one  of 
four  canine  pets  who  brought  brightness  into 
the  Arnold  household,  lived  but  four  years  with 
them: 

That  loving  heart,  that  patient  soul, 

Had  they  indeed  no  longer  span, 
To  run  their  course,  and  reach  their  goal, 

And  read  their  homily  to  man? 


IYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION        109 

That  liquid,  melancholy  eye, 

From  whose  pathetic,  soul-fed  springs 

Seemed  surging  the  Virgilian  cry, 
The  sense  of  tears  in  mortal  things. 

the  poet  appears  naturally  to  revert  to  the 
classical  concept,  the  eleos,  which  enters  into 
Virgil's  pathetic  "  Sunt  lacrimae  rerum,  et  mentem 
mortalia  tangunt." 

But  while  Butler,  in  searching  for  stable  grounds 
whereon  to  place  the  doctrine  of  immortality, 
finds  it  impossible  to  rule  out  summarily  the  brute 
creation,  :<  which  groaneth  and  travaileth  in 
pain  together  until  now,  waiting  for  the  manifes- 
tation of  the  sons  of  God,"  Arnold  resignedly 
iccepts  a  common  lot  of  annihilation  with  them: 

That  steadfast,  mournful  strain,  consoled 

By  spirits  gloriously  gay, 
And  temper  of  heroic  mold — 

What,  was  four  years  their  whole  short  day? 

Yes,  only  four! — and  not  the  course 

Of  all  the  centuries  yet  to  come, 
And  not  the  infinite  resource 

Of  Nature,  with  her  countless  sum 

Of  figures,  with  her  fullness  vast 

Of  new  creation  evermore, 
Can  ever  quite  repeat  the  past, 

Or  just  thy  little  self  restore. 

Stern  law  of  every  mortal  lot! 

Which  man,  proud  man,  finds  hard  to  bear, 
And  builds  himself  I  know  not  what 

Of  second  life  I  know  not  where. 


no  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

But  thou,  when  struck  thine  hour  to  go, 

On  us,  who  stood  despondent  by,  % 

A  meek  last  glance  of  love  didst  throw, 
And  humbly  lay  thee  down  to  die. 

Surely  it  is  a  pity  to  use  our  love  for  unselfish 
animal  friends  in  order  to  point  so  despairing  a 
moral.  Nelly  Arnold's  pet  canary,  Matthias, 
has  also  received  a  memorial  tribute  from  the 
poet: 

Poor  Matthias! — Found  him  lying 
Fall'n  beneath  his  perch  and  dying? 

— Songster  thou  of  many  a  year, 
Now  thy  mistress  brings  thee  here, 
Says  it  fits  that  I  rehearse, 
Tribute  due  to  thee,  a  verse, 
Meed  for  daily  song  of  yore 
Silent  now  for  evermore. 

The  poet  remarks  upon  the  greater  aloofness 
of  the  feathered  tribe  from  man.  We  can  be 
joyful  with  the  sportive  antics  of  a  dog  or  a  cat, 
we  can  soothe  these  pets  when  they  are  troubled, 
stroke  or  pat  them  back  into  cheerfulness;  but 

Birds,  companions  more  unknown, 
Live  beside  us,  but  alone; 
Finding  not,  do  all  they  can, 
Passage  from  their  souls  to  man. 
Kindness  we  bestow,  and  praise, 
Laud  their  plumage,  greet  their  lays; 
Still,  beneath  their  feathered  breast, 
Stirs  a  history  unexpressed. 


SYMPATHY  WITH  BRUTE  CREATION        1 1 1 

The  poet's  farewell  to  Matthias  is  a  farewell  of 
resignation,  in  the  mildly  pathetic  key  that  suits 
the  situation: 

Fare  thee  well,  companion  dear! 
Fare  for  ever  well;  nor  fear, 
Tiny  though  thou  art,  to  stray 
Down  the  uncompanioned  v 
We  without  thee,  little  friend, 
y  years  have  not  to  spend ; 
What  are  left  will  hardly  be 
Better  than  we  spent  with  thee. 

Why  was  it  that  the  publication  of  Matthew 
Arnold's  Letters,  a  few  years  ago,  proved  so  pro- 
found a  disappointment  ?  They  were  eagerly 
waited  for,  in  the  absence  of  autobiographical 
or  other  matter.  It  is  well  known  that  he  shrank 
almost  morbidly  from  publicity,  and  left  in- 
structions at  his  death  that  no  biography  should 
be  published.  His  letters  are  bright  and  human; 
they  tell  us  of  his  children  and  his  pets;  there  was 
Atossa,  the  favorite  cat : 

Cruel,  but  composed  and  bland, 
Dumb,  inscrutable  and  grand. 
So  Tiberius  might  have  sat, 
Had  Tiberius  been  a  cat. 

He  seems  to  have  had  a  growing  devotion  to 
flowers.  But  there  are  no  signs  in  the  letters 
that  he  had  sufficiently  fathomed  the  depths 
of  human  nature,  interested  himself  sufficiently 
in  the  social  problems  of  the  age,  or  learned 


H2  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

the  meaning  of  humanity  and  nature  in  so  thorough 
a  way  as  to  justify  his  sweeping  negations  cov- 
ering the  universe  and  the  future.  He  rises 
merely  to  a  sufficient  height  to  view  the  drama  of 
history,  and  exclaim  in  a  passion  of  disappoint- 
ment, "O,  the  pity  of  it!"  It  seemed  to  Richard 
Holt  Hutton  that  Arnold  felt  a  subtle  delight  in 
the  expression  of  that  exquisite  pathos  of  which 
he  was  undoubtedly  a  master;  there  is  an  evident 
ultimate  reaction  in  his  moods  from  the  cold 
pessimism  into  which  he  drifts.  He  swings  back 
again  into  the  warmer  current  of  life  and  hope  and 
trust.  It  would  be  well  for  his  readers  to  make 
sure  that  this  "moral  shower-bath"  treatment  is 
followed  in  their  case  also  by  the  same  reactive 
glow. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE 

THE  question  has  often  been  asked,  What 
exactly  was  Arnold's  attitude  toward  modern 
science  ?  In  his  writings  he  professes  to  be  keenly 
scientific,  but  his  treatment  of  things  and  his 
general  affiliations  were  always  distinctly  literary. 
We  do  not  associate  him  with  painful  and  accurate 
laboratory  work;  and  his  etymologies  and  general- 
izations in  the  field  of  philological  science  are 
neither  founded  on  first-hand  investigation  nor 
are  they  rigidly  accurate.  Oxford,  also,  is  usually 
credited  with  being  almost  mediaeval  in  her  phil- 
osophic and  scientific  outlook.  We  remember 
the  pathetic  exclamation  of  a  puzzled  Oxford  don 
who  resented  the  influx  of  German  methods  into 
the  peaceful  antiquity  of  the  university  on  the  Isis: 
"I  wish,"  he  moaned,  "that  Jarman  philosophy 
and  Jarman  theology  were  all  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Jarman  Ocean!" 

And  yet  the  fact  remains  that,  whatever  Ger- 
man institutes  have  since  accomplished,  Oxford 
was,  a  hundred  years  ago,  the  home  and  cradle 
of  modern  geology.  The  father  of  geology 
was  William  Smith,  born  in  the  county  of  Oxford. 

8  113 


114  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

In  his  practical  duties  as  surveyor  ana  engineer 
of  canals  and  irrigation  works  Smith  gathered 
together  valuable  original  material  which  he  used 
for  the  publication  of  maps,  and  these  maps  are 
of  great  historic  moment.  His  work  was  passed 
on  to  an  Oxford  scholar,  William  Buckland,  later 
Dean  of  Westminster;  a  deanery,  by  the  way, 
which  ranks  in  importance  higher  than  many 
English  bishoprics.  The  dignity  of  science — real 
science — was  thus  installed  in  an  honored  place  in 
the  Anglican  Church;  one  reason,  certainly,  why 
Matthew  Arnold  was  so  proud  of  his  church. 
Buckland,  making  use  of  these  maps,  was  able  to 
follow  out  Smith's  indications,  and  to  trace  back 
the  history  of  the  world's  mutations.  His  work 
was  familiar  to  Thomas  Arnold.  Three  years 
before  the  latter  came  up  as  a  freshman  to  Corpus 
Christi  College  in  Oxford,  Buckland  had  been 
appointed  a  fellow  of  the  college,  and  in  1813  he 
became  University  Professor  of  Geology.  His 
influence  was  great  in  thinking  circles.  He  did 
much  to  infuse  a  new  scientific  spirit  into  the  uni- 
versity, and  at  the  same  time  to  quiet  the  pertur- 
bations of  the  timidly  orthodox,  who  were  afraid 
of  the  effect  of  these  scientific  revelations  on  the 
traditional  Mosaic  cosmogony,  which  they  associ- 
ated with  absolute  religious  truth.  Dr.  William 
Buckland  was  a  consistent  Christian,  as  well  as  a 


MODERN  SCIENCE  115 

leader  in  science,  and  was  not  afraid  of  proclaim- 
ing truths  which  revealed  God's  manner  of  work- 
ing in  his  own  universe.  His  methods  fascinated 
Thomas  Arnold,  who,  as  we  learn  from  Justice 
Coleridge,  became  one  of  his  most  earnest  and 
intelligent  pupils,  and  was  afterward  known  for 
the  skill  and  ease  with  which  he  made  use  of 
geological  facts  in  enforcing  moral  truths. 

The  friendship  between  Buckland  and  the 
Arnolds  continued  throughout  their  lives.  The 
geologist  served  as  a  village  pastor  in  Hampshire, 
and  then  as  a  canon  of  Christ  Church,  before 
he  was  appointed  Dean  of  Westminster ;  and 
marriage  ties  strengthened  the  friendship  between 
the  two  families. 

The  friend  and  pupil  of  Buckland  could  not 
write  a  poem  like  "Empedocles  on  Etna"  as 
if  he  were  a  pure  ancient  Greek.  It  was  morally 
impossible.  The  modern  attitude  toward  the 
created  world  of  to-day,  as  a  phase  in  a  long  his- 
tory of  progress,  is  notable  in  the  writings  of  both 
Thomas  and  Matthew.  Like  the  great  Scotch- 
man Thomas  Chalmers,  Buckland  was  appointed 
lecturer  by  the  Bridgewater  trustees,  and  in 
1836  appeared  his  treatise,  which  aimed  to  prove, 
by  the  aids  of  science,  "The  Power,  Wisdom,  and 
Goodness  of  God  as  Manifested  in  the  Creation/' 
When  Baron  Bunsen  visited  England  two  years 


1 16  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

later  he  found  Buckland  "persecuted  by  bigots 
for  having  asserted  that  among  the  fossils  there 
might  be  a  preadamic  species." 

Readers  of  "In  Memoriam"  know  how  the 
notion  of  a  universe  which  had  existed  and  pro- 
duced grass,  and  vegetables,  and  creatures,  for 
countless  ages  before  the  advent  of  man,  domi- 
nated the  thought  of  the  poet  Tennyson;  and  how 
the  expression  of  the  thought  puzzled  many  good 
people  who  conceived  it  irreligious  to  think  of  a 
world  much  over  four  thousand  years  old.  Very 
early  in  Matthew  Arnold's  life,  history  thus  came 
in  a  mystic  preadamic  form;  and  the  conversa- 
tions to  which  he  listened  at  his  father's  table, 
entered  into  by  clergymen  and  dignitaries  of  the 
church,  accustomed  him  to  conceive  of  a  process 
in  creation  working  away  back  in  the  dim  begin- 
nings of  time.  This  conception  is  present  in  his 
poem  "The  Future": 

Who  can  see  the  green  earth  any  more 
As  she  was  by  the  sources  of  Time  ? 
Who  imagines  her  fields  as  they  lay 
In  the  sunshine,  unworn  by  the  plow? 
Who  thinks  as  they  thought, 
The  tribes  who  then  roamed  on  her  breast, 
Her  vigorous,  primitive  sons? 

For  geology,  however,  Matthew  Arnold  had 
no  special  liking;  the  natural  science  which 
attracted  him  most  was  botany.  His  passionate 


MODERN  SCIENCE  117 

love  of  flowers  appears  in  his  letters,  but  is  by 
no  means  so  evident  in  his  poems;  not  so  evident, 
for  instance,  as  in  the  poems  of  Tennyson,  who  was 
always  at  home  in  the  garden,  among  scented 
lanes,  and  in  the  flower-strewn  meadows.  Per- 
haps the  most  striking  flower  passage  in  Arnold 
occurs  in  his  "Thyrsis,"  when  he  addresses  the 
cuckoo: 

Too  quick  despairer,  wherefore  wilt  thou  go? 
Soon  will  the  high  midsummer  pomps  come  on, 

Soon  will  the  musk  carnations  break  and  swell, 
Soon  shall  we  have  gold-dusted  snapdragon, 

Sweet-william  with  his  homely  cottage-smell, 

And  stocks  in  fragrant  blow; 
Roses  that  down  the  alleys  shine  afar, 

And  open,  jasmine-muffled  lattices, 

And  groups  under  the  dreaming  garden-trees, 
And  the  full  moon,  and  the  white  evening  star. 

It  was  one  of  the  poet's  great  objects  in  life  to 
teach  youth  to  delight  in  the  beauties  of  God's 
earth  as  the  Master  delighted  in  them;  he  who 
bade  his  disciples  gaze  upon  the  lilies  of  the  field, 
which  neither  toil  nor  spin,  but  whose  glory 
surpasses  the  raiment  of  princes.  There  was  a 
morbid  teaching  abroad  which  associated  holiness 
with  an  indifference  to  the  beauties  of  earth.  A 
good  Mr.  Cecil  is  quoted  as  having  so  expressed 
himself:  "I  want  to  see  no  more  sea,  hills,  valleys, 
fields,  abbeys,  or  castles.  I  feel  vanity  pervading 
everything  but  eternity  and  its  concerns,  and  per- 


n8  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

ceive  these  things  to  be  suited  to  children." 
Arnold  was  right  in  declaring  that  the  Bible, 
which  he  knew  so  well  and  quoted  so  often,  teaches 
no  such  ascetic  attitude. 

Some  of  his  letters  are  delightfully  full  of  flower 
lore,  revealing  what  accurate  botanical  knowl- 
edge lay  beneath  his  descriptions  of  nature  in  his 
poems.  Take,  for  instance,  the  closing  passage  of 
a  letter  to  his  friend  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant  Duff, 
written  from  Stockbridge,  Massachusetts,  just 
two  years  before  his  death:  "The  flowers  and 
trees  are  delightfully  interesting.  On  a  woody 
knoll  behind  this  cottage  the  undergrowth  is 
kalmia,  which  was  all  in  flower  when  we  came. 
The  Monotropa  umflora  (Indian  pipe  or  corpse 
plant,  as  they  call  it  here — excellent  names)  is 
under  every  tree,  the  Pyrola  rotundifolia  in  masses. 
Then  we  drive  out  through  boggy  ground,  and 
towering  up  everywhere  are  the  great  meadow 
rue,  beautifully  elegant,  the  Heliantbus  giganteus 
and  the  milkweed — this  last  (Asclepias)  in  several 
varieties,  and  very  effective.  I  believe  it  is  an 
American  plant  only,  and  so  I  think  is  the  shrubby 
cinquefoil,  which  covers  waste  ground,  as  the  whin 
does  with  us.  .  .  .  The  trees,  too,  delight 
me.  I  had  no  notion  what  maples  really  were, 
thinking  only  of  our  pretty  hedgerow  shrub  at 
home;  but  they  are,  as,  of  course,  you  know,  trees 


MODERN  SCIENCE  119 


of  the  family  of  our  sycamore,  but  more  imposing 
than  our  sycamore  and  more  delicate." 

And  again,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  his  mother, 
he  reveals  this  same  passion — there  are  many  such 
passages:  "I  find  it  very,  very  useful  and  inter- 
esting to  know  the  signification  of  names,  and  had 
written  to  ask  him  (Professor  Deutsch)  whether 
Jerusalem  meant  the  'vision  of  peace*  or  'the 
foundation  of  peace';  either  meaning  is  beautiful, 
but  I  wished  for  the  first,  as  the  more  beautiful. 
However,  you  will  see  what  he  says.  I  should  have 
written  to  you  yesterday,  but  was  taken  out  for 
a  walk  by  the  little  girls.  Our  white  violets  have 
prospered.  ...  I  know  of  but  one  clump  of 
blue  violets  near  Harrow,  and  that  is  kept  well 
picked  by  village  children.  However,  we  found 
one  or  two  in  it,  to  the  little  girls'  great  delight. " 

His  "Bacchanalia;  or,  The  New  Age"  begins 
with  a  nature  touch  of  this  kind: 

The  business  of  the  day  is  done, 
The  last-left  haymaker  is  gone. 
And  from  the  thyme  upon  the  height, 
And  from  the  elder-blossom  white 
And  pale  dog-roses  in  the  hedge, 
And  from  the  mint-plant  in  the  sedge, 
In  puffs  of  balm  the  night  air  blows 
The  perfume  which  the  day  forgoes. 

Suddenly  the  scene  appears  to  be  filled  with  a 
procession  of  Maenads  and  Bacchantes,  and  ancient 


I2O  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Greece  and  her  magic  world  are  before  the  poet. 
But  all  is  a  passing  illusion,  the  figures  vanish 
and  the  voices  are  still: 

Ah,  so  the  quiet  was! 
So  was  the  hush! 

Then  comes  the  New  Age,  with  all  its  violence 
and  vigor: 

Thundering  and  bursting 

In  torrents,  in  waves — 
Caroling  and  shouting 

Over  tombs,  amid  graves — 
See !  on  the  cumbered  plain 

Clearing  a  stage, 
Scattering  the  past  about, 

Comes  the  new  age. 
Bards  make  new  poems, 

Thinkers  new  schools, 
Statesmen  new  systems, 

Critics  new  rules. 
All  things  begin  again; 

Life  is  their  prize ; 
Earth  with  their  deeds  they  fill, 

Fill  with  their  cries. 

The  singer  calls  upon  the  ideal  poet  to  rise  to 
the  opportunities  spread  before  him,  to  mirror 
forever  the  life  that  he  sees  and  feels.  Why  is 
he  mute  ? 

Look,  ah,  what  genius, 

Art,  science,  wit! 
Soldiers  like  Csesar, 

Statesmen  like  Pitt! 
Sculptors  like  Phidias, 

Raphaels  in  shoals, 


MODERN  SCIENCE  121 

Poets  like  Shakespeare — 

Beautiful  souls! 
See  on  their  glowing  cheeks 

Heavenly  the  flush! 

Then  again  comes  the  chill  disillusion: 

Ah,  so  the  silence  was/ 
So  was  the  hush! 

It  is  noticeable  that  Arnold  in  these  lines  makes 
no  reference  whatever  to  the  triumphs  of  science, 
nor  mentions  any  great  name  in  the  scientific 
world.  After  all,  to  him  the  most  imposing 
achievements  of  man,  since  the  time  of  Newton 
and  Priestley — man's  harnessing  of  the  winds  and 
the  waves — meant  little  more  than  Nuremberg 
toys.  He  sought  to  dwell  in  the  realm  of  the 
Eternal. 

But  Arnold's  realm  of  the  Eternal  rests  on  a 
misconception  of  what  the  Eternal  really  is.  The 
Eternal  is  not  that  which  a  critic,  sitting  in  judg- 
ment upon,  can  term  finally  exquisite  and  satisfy- 
ing to  the  aesthetic  sense.  There  is  as  much  of  the 
Eternal  in  a  great,  moving  steamship — although 
its  mechanism  and  machinery  may  be  antiquated 
five  years  hence — as  in  Saint  Peter's  at  Rome  or  in 
a  masterpiece  of  Raphael.  The  man  who  lives 
the  Christ  life  to-day  in  some  repulsive  slum  of  a 
great,  unlovely  city  may  be  closer  to  the  Eternal 
than  Homer,  whose  poetry  has  charmed  twenty-five 
centuries  of  mankind.  All  human  beings  who 


122  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

fulfill  the  destiny  which  God  has  allotted  to  them 
are  ambassadors  of  the  Eternal;  not  the  mere 
fortunate  few  who,  happening  to  possess  a  literary 
or  artistic  gift,  have  produced  masterpieces  before 
which  criticism  is  disarmed.  Christ  came  not  to 
judge  the  world,  or  as  a  supreme  artist,  but  to 
give  the  world  more  of  the  divine  energy  and  life. 
Whether  this  energy  realizes  itself  in  the  evanes- 
cent products  of  to-day,  or  the  (comparatively) 
more  enduring  literary  and  artistic  masterpieces 
of  Greece,  Italy,  and  England,  the  Eternal  Glory, 
the  enduring  Power  of  Love,  is  behind  both,  and 
informing  both;  the  products  themselves  are  on  a 
secondary  plane.  The  master  worker  in  science 
and  in  law  is  worthy  of  our  respect  equally  with 
Homer  and  Raphael  as  an  instrument  of  the 
Eternal.  Part  of  his  strength  lies  in  the  belief  that 
he  is  getting  nearer  the  mind  of  the  great  Being 
who  is  working  out  his  purposes  in  this  universe; 
and  that  man's  relation  to  the  universe  is  not  a 
constant,  but  a  ratio  which  is  constantly  growing 
in  favor  of  man.  If  so,  the  great  discoverers  in 
science,  and  the  noble  army  of  efficient  workers 
in  every  field  of  human  activity,  deserve  a  place 
with  the  poets,  sculptors,  and  painters  as  revealers 
of  the  Divine  and  Eternal. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE 

FROM  the  beginning  of  his  career  to  its  close 
Arnold  was  a  close  and  devout  reader  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, not  only  of  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  but  also  of  the  Apocrypha, 
several  of  the  books  in  which  have  been  recom- 
mended to  the  devout  for  their  reading  by  the 
authorities  of  the  Anglican  Church.  One  of  these 
is  the  Wisdom  book  of  the  Son  of  Sirach,  com- 
monly known  as  Ecclesiasticus,  a  noble  utterance; 
and  its  pages  were  familiar  to  Arnold.  It  was 
down  among  the  list  of  books  he  took  with 
him  on  his  American  tour  to  be  read,  and  one  of 
those  marked  out  as  having  been  read.  In  the 
very  closing  days  of  his  life  he  must  have  been 
turning  up  its  pages,  for  an  excerpt  from  the  thirty- 
eighth  chapter  appears  in  his  notebook:  "When 
the  dead  is  at  rest,  let  his  remembrance  rest;  and 
be  comforted  for  him,  when  his  spirit  departeth 
from  him." 

The  term  "Pharisee"  has  been  abundantly  used 
in  modern  discussions  to  give  edge  to  sarcasm, 
and  the  party  that  Arnold  constantly  antagonized 

within   and  without  the   church   have  had    this 

123 


124  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

epithet  constantly  flung  at  them.  The  associated 
name  "Sadducee,"  however,  has  not  been  so 
popular.  And  yet,  if  the  term  "Pharisee"  suits 
well  a  rigid  Evangelical,  that  of  "Sadducee" 
comes  remarkably  near  fitting  Arnold's  peculiar 
position  in  religious  matters. 

A  conservative  excessively  reverent  toward  the 
past,  an  aristocrat  by  birth  and  temperament, 
one  who  looked  coldly  on  all  religious  innovations 
and  enthusiasm,  the  typical  Sadducee  had  little 
influence  outside  of  Jerusalem.  He  was  strong 
in  denials.  He  denied  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  and  refused  to  accept  the  plea  that  there 
must  be  retribution  in  a  future  state — a  plea  which 
appealed  so  strongly  to  the  poor  and  needy  Jews 
scattered  abroad  after  the  Exile.  He  denied  the 
existence  of  angels  and  demons.  He  rejected 
fatalism,  and,  like  the  Stoic,  regarded  man  as 
master  of  his  own  fate.  A  man  must  realize 
himself  in  this  present  world,  and  work  out  his 
own  salvation  here  on  earth;  so  declared  the 
high-class  Sadducee. 

Ecclesiasticus  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  and 
greatest  of  Sadducee  productions.  It  is  the  work 
of  an  author  touched  by  the  fascination  of  Greek 
culture,  who  yet  reveres  the  law  of  his  own  people. 
As  with  Arnold,  there  is  no  dualism  in  Ecclesi- 
asticus. Sin  is  not  something  eternal  realizing 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE     125 

itself  in  the  personality  of  Satan.  "When  the 
wicked  man  curses  Satan  he  curses  his  own  soul," 
says  Ben  Sirach.  Compare  this  with  Arnold's 
dictum,  that  sin  is  merely  our  own  impotence  or 
weakness;  let  a  man  be  only  true  to  himself 
and  he  can  overcome  sin  by  his  own  force  and 
goodness. 

This  slack-water  period,  as  it  may  be  termed, 
in  Jewish  history,  when  the  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  complete  and  that  of  the  New 
Testament  was  still  in  the  future,  had  special 
attractions  for  modern  thinkers  like  Arnold  and 
Huxley.  It  was  a  time  when  the  Greek  Logos  or 
Word,  and  the  Greek  Sophia  or  Wisdom,  came 
into  relations  with  the  Hebrew  law  and  right- 
eousness. A  mysterious  Other  World,  inhabited 
by  God  and  angelic  beings,  and  destined  for  the 
saints,  had  not  yet  laid  hold  upon  the  religious  con- 
cepts of  the  people.  The  leading  minds  were  satis- 
fied with  the  declaration  of  Micah  (6.  8):  "He 
hath  showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good;  and  what 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?" 

Some  of  the  later  prophets  seemed  to  nineteenth 
century  moralists  to  stand  on  a  pinnacle  of  truth 
which  makes  their  great  proclamations  and 
exhortations  better  fitted  for  general  use  to-day 
than  any  other  portions  of  the  Scriptures.  Dr. 


iz6  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Thomas  Arnold,  in  one  of  his  letters,  notes  that 
the  poet  George  Herbert,  in  one  of  his  poems, 
uses  language  of  this  kind,  as  if  he  regarded  the 
revelations  of  the  patriarchal  church  almost  with 
envy,  because  they  had  closer  communion  with 
God  than  Christians  have.  "All  which  seems  to 
me  to  arise  out  of  a  forgetfulness  or  misappre- 
hension of  the  privileges  of  Christians  in  their 
communion  with  the  Holy  Spirit.  .  .  .  The 
third  relation  of  the  Deity  to  man  is  rather  the 
most  perfect  of  all,  as  it  is  that  in  which  God 
communes  with  men,  not  'as  a  man  talketh  with 
his  friend,'  but  as  a  Spirit  holding  discourse  in- 
visibly and  incomprehensibly,  but  more  effectually 
than  by  any  outward  address — with  the  spirits 
only  of  his  creatures."  The  discipline  of  the 
Old  Testament,  says  his  son,  may  be  summed 
up  as  a  discipline  teaching  us  to  abhor  and  flee 
from  sin;  the  discipline  of  the  New  Testament, 
as  a  discipline  teaching  us  to  die  to  it. 

Matthew  Arnold  preferred  an  attitude  that 
was  negative  on  the  subject  of  the  life  after  death 
and  demanded  no  reliance  on  a  mystic  Third 
Person.  So  impressed  was  he  with  the  educa- 
tional value  and  availability  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophetic  teaching  that  he  edited  for  school  use 
the  chapters  in  Isaiah  dealing  with  the  great 
destiny  of  the  nation,  and  known  as  the  Restora- 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      127 

t  ion-Prophecy.  His  little  book  contained  the  last 
twenty-seven  chapters  of  Isaiah,  with  ample  notes 
and  a  long  preface,  and  was  entitled  "The  Great 
Prophecy  of  Israel's  Restoration/'  The  book, 
although  now  very  scarce,  never  actually  became 
a  text-book. 

A  new  meaning  had  been  read  into  these 
chapters  by  recent  research,  and  Arnold  was 
;inxious  to  popularize  this  interpretation.  Instead 
)f  the  term  "Servant  of  the  Lord"  being  made  to 
;ipply  immediately  to  Christ  and  his  mission,  it 
A  as  understood  as  having  a  first  reference  to  the 
times  in  which  it  was  written.  Suffering  Israel 
was  the  servant  upheld  by  the  Eternal,  the  chosen 
:>ne  in  whom  his  soul  delighted;  upon  whom 
was  poured  his  Spirit,  who  was  destined  to  pro- 
claim his  law  of  truth  and  righteousness  to  the 
nations. 

Availing  himself  of  the  labors  of  Ewald, 
Gesenius,  Kuenen,  and  other  learned  biblical 
scholars,  Arnold  threw  his  convictions  into  book 
form  in  "Literature  and  Dogma,"  a  brilliant 
attempt  to  rationalize  the  Scriptures.  Many  good 
Evangelicals  had  become  reconciled  to  the  theory 
that  in  the  Old  Testament  we  have  a  gift  from 
God  whose  value  lies  not  in  its  being  in  a  literal 
sense  a  divine  production,  but  as  containing  an 
invaluable  record  of  divine  dealings  with  a  chosen 


ia8  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

people.  Arnold  was  in  the  same  camp  with  ortho- 
dox Christians  in  claiming  for  the  Jewish  people 
a  special  mission  in  history,  a  peculiar  passion  for 
righteousness,  a  unique  genius  for  handling  the 
deepest  religious  questions;  in  asserting  that  the 
man  who  does  not  know  the  Bible  knows  not  the 
meaning  of  religion.  Unbelievers  openly  scoff 
at  this  claim,  and  have  as  little  use  for  Arnold's 
defense  of  Holy  Writ  as  for  Dr.  Pusey's. 

How  completely,  in  this  rationalizing  work, 
Arnold  forgot  the  wise  adage  of  the  saintly  old 
teacher — "Conserve  the  mystery" — is  evident 
from  the  well-known  passage  dealing  with  the 
three  Lord  Shaftesburys.  And  yet  he  was 
intensely  in  earnest,  and  did  not  mean  to  scoff- 
far  from  it.  Here  is  the  passage:  "As  the  Romish 
doctrine  of  the  mass,  the  Real  Presence,  is  a 
rude  and  blind  criticism  of  'He  that  eateth  me 
shall  live  by  me,'  so  the  Protestant  tenet  of  justi- 
fication, 'pleading  the  blood  of  the  Covenant/  is  a 
rude  and  blind  criticism  of  'The  Son  of  Man  came 
to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many/  It  is  a  taking 
of  the  words  of  Scripture  literally  and  unintelli- 
gently.  And  our  friends,  the  philosophical  Lib- 
erals, are  not  slow  to  call  this,  too,  a  degrading 
superstition,  just  as  Protestants  call  the  doctrine 
of  the  mass  a  degrading  superstition.  We  say, 
on  the  contrary,  that  a  degrading  superstition 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE       129 

neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is.  In  imagining  a 
sort  of  infinitely  magnified  and  improved  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  with  a  race  of  vile  offenders  to  deal 
with,  whom  his  natural  goodness  would  incline 
him  to  let  off,  only  his  sense  of  justice  will  not  allow 
it;  then  a  younger  Lord  Shaftesbury,  on  the  scale 
of  his  father  and  very  dear  to  him,  who  might 
live  in  grandeur  and  splendor  if  he  liked,  but  who 
prefers  to  leave  his  home  to  go  and  live  among  the 
race  of  offenders  and  to  be  put  to  an  ignominious 
death,  on  condition  that  his  merits  shall  be  counted 
against  their  demerits,  and  that  his  father's  good- 
ness shall  be  restrained  no  longer  from  taking 
effect,  but  any  offender  shall  be  admitted  to  the 
benefit  of  it  on  simply  pleading  the  satisfaction 
made  by  the  son;  and  then,  finally,  a  third  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  still  on  the  same  high  scale,  who 
keeps  very  much  in  the  background,  and  works 
in  a  very  occult  manner,  but  very  efficaciously 
nevertheless,  and  who  is  busy  in  applying  every- 
where the  benefits  of  the  son's  satisfaction  and 
the  father's  goodness — in  an  imagination,  I  say, 
such  as  this  there  is  nothing  degrading,  and  this 
is  precisely  the  Protestant  story  of  Justification. 
And  how  awe  of  the  first  Lord  Shaftesbury,  grati- 
tude and  love  toward  the  second,  and  earnest 
cooperation  with  the  third,  may  fill  and  rule 
men's  hearts  so  as  to  transform  their  conduct  we 


130  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

need  not  go  about  to  show,  for  we  have  all  seen  it 
with  our  eyes. " 

This  is  the  famous  passage  on  the  Trinity  which 
Arnold  saw  fit  later  to  regret,  because  of  the  offense 
it  gave.  There  is  a  moral  and  intellectual  serious- 
ness and  earnestness  underlying  the  whole  of 
"Literature  and  Dogma"  which  makes  the  reader 
lament  that  one  so  ill  equipped  for  theological 
discussion  should  have  entered  so  airily  into  the 
theological  arena.  Of  course,  its  publication 
meant  a  complete  break,  not  only  with  Trini- 
tarians, but  even  with  ordinary  Unitarians.  In  its 
pages  Arnold  carries  his  dislike  of  anthropomor- 
phism so  far  as  to  deny  personality  to  God,  who 
becomes  in  its  pages  "the  Eternal." 

Oddly  enough,  Arnold  had  never  considered 
himself  to  be,  nominally  or  sympathetically,  in 
the  Unitarian  camp.  From  his  father  he  had 
inherited  a  dislike  to  Unitarians,  as  "political  Dis- 
senters," and  he  seems  always  to  have  fought  shy 
of  them  in  England.  Toward  American  Uni- 
tarians he  was  more  friendly,  as  was  Dr.  Thomas 
Arnold.  "I  heard  some  time  since,"  writes  the 
latter  from  Rugby  in  1832,  "that  in  the  United 
States,  where  the  Episcopal  Church  has  expelled 
this  creed  (the  Athanasian)  the  character  of 
Unitarianism  is  very  different  from  what  it  is  in 
England,  and  is  returning  toward  high  Arianism, 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      131 

just  as  here  it  has  gone  a  downward  course  to  the 
very  verge  of  utter  disbelief."  They  could  not 
have  gone  farther  than  his  son.  The  present 
Minister  of  Education  at  Westminster,  son  of  a 
Unitarian  minister,  recently  defined  the  modi- 
cum of  religion  which  he  considered  ought  to  be 
i:aught  in  the  state  schools.  The  majority  of 
parents,  he  said,  would  undoubtedly  like  their 
children  to  be  taught  the  simple  elementary  truths, 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  responsibilities  of  man, 
and  the  existence  of  a  future  state.  Matthew 
Arnold's  creed  summarily  disposes  of  the  first 
and  last  as  mere  Aberglaube,  of  the  nature  of 
superstition. 

Arnold  early  came  under  the  spell  of  Emerson, 
and  the  teaching  of  the  two  men  had  much  in 
common.  He  records  his  debt  to  the  New  Eng- 
lander  in  an  early  sonnet: 

WRITTEN  IN  EMERSON'S  ESSAYS 

O  monstrous,  dead,  unprofitable  world, 

That  thou  canst  hear,  and  hearing  hold  thy  way  I 
A  voice  oracular  hath  pealed  to-day; 

To-day  a  hero's  banner  is  unfurled; 

Hast  thou  no  lip  for  welcome? — So  I  said. 

Man  after  man,  the  world  smiled  and  passed  by; 

A  smile  of  wistful  incredulity, 
As  though  one  spake  of  life  unto  the  dead — 

Scornful,  and  strange,  and  sorrowful,  and  full 

Of  bitter  knowledge.     Yet  the  will  is  free; 
Strong  is  the  soul,  and  wise,  and  beautiful; 


132  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

The  seeds  of  godlike  power  are  in  us  still; 
Gods  are  we,  bards,  saints,  heroes,  if  we  will! — 
Dumb  judges,  answer,  truth  or  mockery? 

The  two  thinkers,  in  many  respects  so  unlike, 
had  yet  essentially  the  same  mission.  Bathed  and 
steeped  in  Christian  thought,  Emerson  spent  his 
life  in  reconciling  it  with  Greek  speculation  and 
modern  scientific  results.  Lowell  was  right  when, 
in  his  "Fable  for  Critics,"  he  calls  him  "half 
Greek": 

C.'s  the  Titan,  as  shaggy  of  mind  as  of  limb, — 
E.  the  clear-eyed  Olympian,  rapid  and  slim; 
The  one's  two  thirds  Norseman,  the  other  half  Greek, 
Where  the  one's  most  abounding,  the  other's  to  seek. 

Emerson's  mission  was  to  protest  against  the 
worldly  or  utilitarian  spirit,  and  his  aims  were 
never  negative.  What  he  preached  was  eternal 
truth,  revealed  by  the  Almighty  in  the  glory  of  the 
starry  firmament,  the  splendor  of  the  sunsets, 
the  majesty  of  the  mountains,  the  mystic  beauty 
of  ocean  and  river,  and  the  still  small  voice  in  the 
heart  of  man.  His  words  are  often  semi-Oriental 
in  tone,  which  Arnold's  never  are.  Man,  he 
declared,  by  rights  and  often  in  reality,  should  be 
regarded  as  a  divine  incarnation,  linking  the 
eternal  world  with  the  phenomenal.  This  Ori- 
ental insistence  upon  personality  as  the  last  and 
greatest  thing  in  the  universe  makes  Emerson 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      133 

an  optimist,  while  Arnold's  doctrine  that  our  per- 
sonalities must  finally  submit  themselves  to  a 
Force  is  pessimistic. 

One  crusade  waged  by  Arnold  with  zeal  and 
insistence  was  surely  but  a  hollow  mockery.  He 
never  tired  of  proclaiming  the  need  and  advisability 
of  a  national  church,  with  its  noble  and  refined 
liturgy,  its  trained  clergy,  and  its  historic  temples; 
"a  great  national  society,"  as  he  termed  it,  for 
the  promotion  of  what  is  commonly  called  good- 
ness, and  for  promoting  it  through  the  most  effec- 
tual means  possible,  the  only  means  which  are 
really  and  truly  effectual  for  the  object — through 
the  means  of  the  Christian  religion  and  of  the  Bible. 
In  the  essay  from  which  I  have  just  quoted  he 
declares  that  the  "essence  of  religion  is  grace  and 
peace."  The  more  the  sense  of  religion  grows, 
he  declares,  and  of  religion  in  a  large  way — the 
sense  of  the  beauty  and  rest  of  religion,  the  sense 
that  its  charm  lies  in  grace  and  peace — the  more 
will  the  present  attitude,  objections,  and  com- 
plaints of  those  who  dislike  an  established  church 
seem  unworthy. 

But  surely  these  words,  charm,  grace,  peace,  place 
Christianity  upon  an  aesthetic  basis  rather  than 
on  its  true  foundation  of  saving  power.  The 
emphasis  is  entirely  wrong;  just  as  when  a  well- 
meaning  person  declares  that  only  a  Christian 


134  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

man  can  be  a  real  gentleman.  The  term  gentle- 
man  is  secondary  and  superficial,  and  is  too  small 
to  include  the  deeper  word  Christian;  so  charm- 
ing, graceful,  peaceful  fail  entirely  to  indicate  the 
reality  of  Christ's  teaching.  The  terms  are  com- 
patible with  a  mere  religion  of  conformity,  which 
is  death,  not  life.  "Unity  and  continuity  in  public 
religious  worship  are,"  he  asserts,  "a  need  of 
human  nature,  an  eternal  aspiration  of  Christen- 
dom; but  unity  and  continuity  in  religious  worship 
joined  with  perfect  mental  sanity  and  freedom. 
A  Catholic  church  transformed  is,  I  believe,  the 
church  of  the  future." 

Arnold's  somewhat  supercilious  references  to 
hymns  reveal  the  weakness  of  his  position.  It  was 
mainly  through  Christian  hymns,  popular  ditties 
sung  by  the  people,  that  Western  Europe  was 
civilized.  These  Latin  hymns,  with  their  forceful 
and  measured  lines,  were  a  creation  in  the  world's 
history;  for  the  first  time  uniting,  in  one  energizing 
expression,  poetry,  music,  and  moral  conviction. 
The  people  sang  them  as  nothing  in  the  world's 
history  had  ever  been  sung  before;  for  the  singing 
signified  new  life  to  them.  Again,  at  the  Refor- 
mation, the  soldiers  of  the  new  creed  of  individual 
faith,  hope,  and  love,  each  with  Bible  in  his  pocket, 
read  therein  his  "title  to  a  mansion  in  the  skies," 
and  went  forth  to  war  singing,  "Ein'  feste  Burg  ist 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      135 

unserGott" — Luther's  glorious  battle  hymn — or 
some  other  song  of  intense  moral  conviction. 
The  "Jesus"  hymns  of  the  Moravians  were  an 
inspiration  to  the  founder  of  Methodism;  and  his 
brother's  "Jesus,  Lover  of  my  soul,"  meant 
far  more  to  the  century  than  all  the  poems  of 
Pope,  Thomson,  Gray,  and  Goldsmith  together. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  clinging  in  a  con- 
servative way  to  ancient  habits,  failed  to  make 
use  of  this  great  lever  for  uplifting  the  masses; 
but  popular  hymns  lie  at  the  core  of  our  militant 
Protestantism.  Their  value  is  dynamic,  however, 
rather  than  aesthetic;  hence  Arnold's  small  esteem 
for  hymns.  "Hymns,  such  as  we  know  them," 
he  declares,  "are  a  sort  of  composition  which  I  do 
not  at  all  admire.  I  freely  say  so  now,  as  I  have 
often  said  it  before.  I  regret  their  prevalence  and 
popularity  among  us.  Taking  man  in  his  totality 
and  in  the  long  run,  bad  music  and  bad  poetry, 
to  whatever  good  and  useful  purposes  a  man  may 
often  manage  to  turn  them,  are  in  themselves 
mischievous  and  deteriorating  to  him.  Some- 
where and  somehow,  and  at  some  time  or  other, 
he  has  to  pay  a  penalty  and  to  suffer  a  loss  for 
taking  delight  in  them.  It  is  bad  for  people  to 
hear  such  words  and  such  a  tune  as  the  words 
and  tune  of  *O  happy  place!  when  shall  I  be, 
my  God,  with  thee,  to  see  thy  face?' — worse  for 


136  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

them  to  take  pleasure  in  it.  And  the  time  will 
come,  I  hope,  when  we  shall  feel  the  unsatisfac- 
toriness  of  our  present  hymns,  and  they  will  disap- 
pear from  our  religious  services.  '* 

Sixteen  hundred  years  ago,  perhaps  the  most 
valuable  element  in  humanity  was  to  be  found  in 
the  devoted  Christians  who  worshiped  secretly  in 
the  gloom  of  the  catacombs.  To  what  sort  of 
melodies  they  sang  their  "  psalms  and  hymns  and 
spiritual  songs "  can  never  probably  be  known 
exactly,  but,  as  a  recent  authority  remarks,  "  the 
Christian  religion  had  little  to  do  in  those  days 
with  fashion  and  the  fine  arts.  .  .  .  The 
apostles  did  not  travel  as  music  teachers.  .  .  . 
If  the  words  sung  expressed  a  heartfelt  Christian 
faith  it  made  little  difference  what  modes  or 
melodies  were  used  with  them." 

Coming  down  to  more  recent  days,  we  may  feel 
certain  that  the  singing  of  psalms  in  the  family 
circle,  when  Elgin  and  such  quaint  and  quavering 
tunes  "beet  the  heavenly  flame,"  has  usually  been 
more  blunt  and  crude  than  finished  or  artistic. 
Both  the  music  and  the  poetry  have  often  been 
distinctly  "bad,"  and  yet  the  resultant  effects 
cannot  be  described  as  "mischievous  and  deteri- 
orating." 

And  yet  we  must  agree  with  Arnold  that  nothing 
deserves  more  to  be  antagonized  and  frowned 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      137 

upon  than  the  combination  of  bad  theology  and 
bad  poetry,  to  be  found  in  too  many  popular 
revival  hymns.  Arnold  knew  what  a  good  hymn 
was,  and  could  appreciate  the  best  type.  He  has 
left  on  record  his  admiration  of  the  sublime  stanza 
of  Isaac  Watts : 

See,  from  his  head,  his  hands,  his  feet, 
Sorrow  and  love  flow  mingled  down! 

Did  e'er  such  love  and  sorrow  meet, 
Or  thorns  compose  so  rich  a  crown? 

Still,  the  poem  in  which  this  stanza  appears  is 
more  suited  for  Christian  meditation  than  for 
general  singing. 

Arnold's  criticism  of  modern  hymns  is  altogether 
too  sweepingly  unfavorable;  but  it  was  through 
no  lack  of  reverence.  His  reverent  attitude 
toward  the  Bible  is  best  brought  out,  I  think,  in 
the  introductory  paragraph  of  two  lectures  he 
delivered  before  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical 
Institution  of  Edinburgh,  the  subject  being 
"Bishop  Butler  and  the  Zeit-Geist."  He  begins 
by  complimenting  his  audience  on  the  breadth  of 
their  reading:  "Your  students  in  philosophy  have 
always  read  pretty  widely,  and  have  not  concen- 
trated themselves,  as  we  at  Oxford  used  to  con- 
centrate ourselves,  upon  one  or  two  great  books. 
However,  in  your  study  of  the  Bible  you  got 
abundant  experience  of  our  attitude  of  mind 


138  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

toward  our  two  philosophers.  Your  text-book 
was  right  ;  there  were  no  mistakes  there.  If 
there  was  anything  obscure,  anything  hard  to 
be  comprehended,  it  was  your  ignorance  which 
was  at  fault,  your  failure  of  comprehension. 
Just  such  was  our  mode  of  dealing  with  Butler's 
sermons  and  Aristotle's  ethics.  Whatever  was 
hard,  whatever  was  obscure,  the  text-book  was 
all  right,  and  our  understandings  were  to  conform 
themselves  to  it.  What  agonies  of  puzzle  has 
Butler's  account  of  self-love,  or  Aristotle's  of  the 
intellectual  virtues,  caused  to  clever  undergraduates 
and  to  clever  tutors;  and  by  what  feats  of  astonish- 
ing explanation,  astonishingly  acquiesced  in, 
were  these  agonies  calmed!  We  at  Oxford  used 
to  read  our  Aristotle  or  our  Butler  with  the  same 
absolute  faith  in  the  classicality  of  their  matter  as 
in  the  classicality  of  Homer's  form."  That 
what  followed  was  not  in  accordance  with  this 
attitude  of  implicit  trust  toward  Butler  may  be 
gathered  from  the  lines  of  his  sonnet: 
WRITTEN  IN  BUTLER'S  SERMONS 

Affections,  Instincts,  Principles,  and  Powers, 
Impulse  and  Reason,  Freedom  and  Control, 
So  men,  unraveling  God's  harmonious  whole, 

Rend  in  a  thousand  shreds  this  life  of  ours. 

Vain  labor!     Deep  and  broad,  where  none  may  see, 
Spring  the  foundations  of  that  shadowy  throne 
Where  man's  one  nature,  queen-like,  sits  alone, 

Centered  in  a  majestic  unity; 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE     139 

And  rays  her  powers,  like  sister-islands  seen 

Linking  their  cor.il  arms  under  the  sea, 
Or  clustered  peaks  with  plunging  gulfs  between, 

Spanned  by  aerial  arches  all  of  gold, 
Whereo'er  the  chariot  wheels  of  life  are  rolled 
In  cloudy  circles  to  eternity. 

That  he  placed  John  Wesley  above  the  author 
of  the  Analogy  he  makes  plain  in  the  course  of 
his  criticism.  "Butler,"  he  says,  "met  John  Wesley 
[who  admired  the  Analogy],  and  one  would  like 
to  have  a  full  record  of  what  passed  at  such  a 
meeting.  He  [Butler]  was  of  a  most  reverend 
aspect;  his  face  thin  and  pale,  but  there  was  a 
divine  placidness  in  his  countenance  which 
inspired  veneration  and  expressed  the  most 
benevolent  mind.  His  white  hair  hung  gracefully 
on  his  shoulders,  and  his  whole  figure  was 
patriarchal.  This  description  would  not  ill  suit 
Wesley  himself,  and  it  may  be  thought,  perhaps, 
that  here,  at  any  rate,  we  find  the  saint.  .  .  . 
But  still  the  total  impression  left  by  Butler  is  not 
exactly  that  of  a  saint. " 

To  Arnold,  Wesley,  with  his  "genius  for  godli- 
ness," was  a  type  of  saintliness.  It  is  interesting 
to  find  him  more  in  harmony  with  the  great 
revivalist  than  with  the  Anglican  bishop.  Later 
on  in  this  discussion  of  Butler,  speaking  of  the 
Greek  word  epieikeia,  that  which  has  an  air  of 
consummate  truth  and  likelihood,  of  "sweet 


140  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

reasonableness,"  he  declares  in  words  which 
Wesley  would  have  heartily  indorsed:  "You  know 
what  a  power  was  this  quality  in  the  talkings  and 
dealings  of  Jesus  Christ;  epieikeia  is  the  very  word 
to  characterize  true  Christianity.  And  this  Chris- 
tianity wins,  not  by  an  argumentative  victory, 
not  by  going  through  a  long  debate  with  a  person, 
examining  the  arguments  for  his  case  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  and  making  him  confess  that,  whether 
he  feels  disposed  to  yield  or  no,  yet  in  fair  logic 
and  fair  reason  he  ought  to  yield.  But  it  puts 
something  that  tends  to  transform  him  and  his 
practice — it  puts  this  particular  thing  in  such  a 
way  that  he  feels  disposed  and  eager  to  lay  hold 
of  it;  and  he  does  lay  hold  of  it,  though  without  at 
all  perceiving,  very  often,  the  whole  scheme  to 
which  it  belongs;  and  thus  his  practice  gets 
changed.  This,  I  think,  everyone  will  admit  to  be 
Christianity's  characteristic  way  of  getting  people 
to  embrace  religion.  Now,  it  is  to  be  observed 
how  totally  unlike  a  way  it  is  to  Butler's,  although 
Butler's  object  is  the  same  as  Christianity's — 
to  get  people  to  embrace  religion.  And,  the  object 
being  the  same,  it  must  strike  everyone  that  the 
way  followed  by  Christianity  has  the  advantage 
of  a  far  greater  effectiveness  than  Butler's  way; 
since  people  are  much  more  easily  attracted  into 
making  a  change  than  argued  into  it."  The 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE       141 

absence  of  "saintliness"  in  the  appeal  made  by 
Butler  is  evidently  present  to  the  critic,  who 
remarks  that  the  total  impression  left  by  the 
bishop  is  not  exactly  that  of  a  saint.  Arnold  is 
evidently  in  far  completer  harmony  with  Wes- 
ley, who  preached,  interpreted,  and  practiced 
Christianity  as  a  life. 

Arnold  objects  to  Bishop  Butler  that  he  regards 
our  interests  and  principles  of  action  as  if  they 
were  things  as  separate,  fixed,  and  palpable  as 
bodily  organs;  that  he  speaks  of  benevolence  as 
if  it  had  always  gone  on  secreting  love  for  our 
neighbor,  and  of  compassion  as  if  it  had  gone  on 
secreting  a  desire  to  relieve  misery,  and  of  con- 
science as  if  it  always  had  sent  forth  right  verdicts, 
just  as  the  liver  secretes  bile.  He  is  right  in  chang- 
ing Butler's  expression  "the  desire  for  happiness" 
into  "the  instinct  to  live,"  and  making  this 
impulse  the  motor  principle  of  life.  The  experi- 
ences of  the  unity  which  we  know  as  "I"  are 
divisible  only  in  an  abstract  manner;  for  the  "I" 
cannot  be  broken  up  into  a  combination  of  war- 
ring or  harmonious  instincts  and  principles  to 
be  regarded  as  separately  existing,  and  not  as 
mere  facts  of  the  individual  spirit.  But,  in  pos- 
tulating the  existence  of  two  lives  or  selves  in  a 
man,  Arnold  creates  a  duality  which  also  is 
defensible  only  as  an  abstraction  for  the  analyst; 


142  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

and  possibly  he  intends  his  words  to  be  construed 
in  this  way.  "It  is  not  true,"  he  states,  "that 
the  affections  and  impulses  of  both  alike  [self- 
love  and  benevolence]  are,  as  Butler  says,  the  voice 
of  God;  the  self-love  of  Butler,  the  'cool  study 
of  our  private  interest/  is  not  the  voice  of  God. 
It  is  a  hasty,  erroneous  interpretation  by  us, 
in  our  long,  tentative,  up-struggling  develop- 
ment of  the  instinct-to-live,  the  desire-for-happi- 
ness,  which  is  the  voice  of  our  authentic  nature, 
the  voice  of  God;  and  it  has  to  be  corrected  by 
experience.  .  .  .  Jesus  Christ  said,  'Renounce 
thyself!'  and  yet  he  also  said:  'What  is  a  man 
advantaged,  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  yet 
lose  himself,  be  mulcted  of  himself?'  He  said: 
'I  am  come  that  men  might  have  life,  and  might 
have  it  more  abundantly;'  and  'ye  will  not  come  to 
me  that  ye  may  have  life!9  And  yet  he  said: 
'Whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it'/  This 
psychology,"  says  Arnold,  "carries  everyone 
with  it" — the  "psychology  of  Jesus  Christ,  which 
without  the  least  apparatus  of  system  is  yet 
incomparably  exacter  than  Butler's,  as  well  as 
incomparably  more  illuminative  and  fruitful." 
He  considers  that  there  is  no  danger,  such  as 
Butler  felt,  in  making  the  instinct  to  live  that 
which  we  must  set  out  with  in  explaining  human 
nature,  so  long  as  we  remember  that  only  in  the 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      143 

impersonal  life  and  with  the  higher  self  is  the 
instinct  truly  served  and  the  desire  truly  satis- 
fied. 

But  it  is  Arnold's  use  here  of  the  word  imper- 
sonal that  is  unsatisfactory.  The  higher  life  is  not 
impersonal,  but  more  truly  personal;  nor  is  man 
asked  to  lose  himself  in  the  universe  by  "joining 
the  choir  invisible."  The  same  speaker  tells 
those  who  figuratively  "lose  their  lives"  that 
great  is  their  reward  in  heaven.  It  is  through  the 
reception  of  other  personalities  unto  our  own 
personalities  that  we  finally  realize  ourselves  and 
come  to  find  God.  "Christ  in  us,  the  hope  of 
glory"  is  not  a  mere  trope;  it  is  a  spiritual  fact, 
at  the  root  of  our  religious  experience.  Arnold 
quotes  Schleiermacher  approvingly,  and  accepts 
what  the  German  says  in  the  matter  of  recogniz- 
ing Platonic  and  Greek  thought  in  our  modern 
Christianity;  but  he  fails  to  appreciate  the  value 
of  Schleiermacher's  psychology. 

And  what  heart  knows  another? 
Ah!  who  knows  his  own? 

These  are  the  dreamy  questions  of  the  poet. 
His  conception  of  friendship  suffers  under  this 
limitation: 

Like  driftwood  spars,  which  meet  and  pass 

Upon  the  boundless  ocean-plain, 
So  on  the  sea  of  life,  alas! 

D  meets  man — meets  and  quits  again. 


144  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

The  bond  is  a  temporary  one,  liable  to  be  broken 
again  at  any  time;  "to  friends/'  he  says  in  one  of 
his  poems,  "we  have  no  natural  right;"  we  have 
no  property  in  them.  But  this  is  just  what 
Schleiermacher  and  the  modern  idealist  deny. 

When  Archbishop  Trench  lay  dying  his  chap- 
lain began  to  read  at  his  request  the  glowing  pas- 
sage from  Paul's  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy 
beginning,  "For  God  has  not  given  to  us  the  spirit 
of  fear. "  When  he  came  to  the  words,  "  I  know 
in  whom  I  have  believed,"  "Hold,  hold!"  cried 
the  dying  saint;  "not  in  whom,  but  whom — I 
know  whom  I  have  believed,  and  I  am  persuaded 
that  he  is  able  to  guard  that  which  I  have 
committed  to  him  against  that  day. " 

It  is  this  immediate  knowledge  and  belief  of 
the  heart  which  is  lacking  in  Arnold's  whole  treat- 
ment of  religious  themes.  His  psychology  is  the 
out-of-date  psychology  of  the  isolated  man,  which 
marked  the  eighteenth  century  type  of  thought; 
poor,  little,  feeble  man,  a  mere  accident  in  the 
great  machinery  of  the  universe!  Arnold's 
"Nature"  is  a  misconception  of  God's  creation: 

Yes,  while  on  earth  a  thousand  discords  ring, 
Man's  senseless  uproar  mingling  with  his  toil, 
Still  do  thy  quiet  ministers  move  on, 

Their  glorious  tasks  in  silence  perfecting; 
Still  working,  blaming  still  our  vain  turmoil; 
Laborers  that  shall  not  fail,  when  man  is  gone. 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      145 

But  man  is  an  integral  portion  of  the  great 
eternity  of  mind  which  makes  use  of  matter  as  a 
master  makes  use  of  a  servant.  Mind  is,  so  to 
speak,  a  great  ocean,  which  moves  fluidly,  with  no 
loss,  but  a  constant  gain.  We  are  heirs,  not  only 
of  what  our  fathers  have  done  in  the  material 
world,  but  of  what  they  have  been  unable  to 
do  in  the  spiritual  world — their  apparently 
fruitless  efforts,  their  ideals  and  longings; 
and  there  is  room  in  the  universe  for  the 
individual  survival  of  everyone.  Not  force, 
conceived  as  present  in  atoms,  is  power,  but 
personality;  and  the  words  wise,  good,  true 
have  a  meaning  only  when  used  as  attributes 
of  some  personality.  The  communion  of  saints 
perpetuates  itself  by  the  communication  of  virtue 
from  one  person  to  another.  No  worse  psychol- 
ogy could  be  uttered  than  Arnold's  statement 
in  his  sonnet  "The  Divinity,"  that  "Wisdom 
and  goodness  they  are  God."  To  pray  to  wis- 
dom and  goodness  is  an  impossibility  and  an 
absurdity.  Will,  aspiration,  sympathy,  love,  . 
beauty  are  unthinkable  apart  from  the  beings 
in  whom  they  inhere,  and  who,  by  living,  give 
them  reality.  The  reality  in  the  world  is  the 
warm,  expansive  life  of  persons  in  touch  with 
the  center  of  Life  and  Love.  We  are  mysteriously 
bound  to  one  another  and  to  God,  as  the  branches 


146  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

of  a  tree  belong  to  each  other  and  to  the  trunk 
and  roots.  We  find  absolute  truth  not  by 
isolating  ourselves  from  our  fellows,  but  by  identi- 
fying our  lives  with  theirs.  "The  social  con- 
sciousness," says  Schleiermacher,  "finds  its  satis- 
faction only  in  stepping  out  of  the  limits  of  its 
own  personality,  and  taking  up  into  its  own  per- 
!  sonality  the  things  pertaining  to  other  personali- 
ties. Every  one  must  concede  as  a  matter  of 
experience  that  it  is  his  natural  condition  to  stand 
always  in  a  many-sided  fellowship  of  feeling, 
and  his  feeling  of  absolute  dependence  on  God 
has  been  awakened  by  the  communicative  and 
stimulative  power  of  human  utterance." 

In  his  strangely  unsympathetic  and  antiquated 
attitude  toward  the  ocean  Arnold  failed  to  grasp  the 
conception  which  makes  of  the  great  encircling 
element  not  a  dragon  or  force  of  evil,  as  it 
appeared  to  the  early  world,  but  the  symbol  of  an 
all-prevailing,  all-embracing  Deity.  Schleier- 
macher's  theology  has  received  a  poetic  interpre- 
tation from  Whittier: 

Immortal  Love,  forever  full, 

Forever  flowing  free, 
Forever  shared,  forever  whole, 

A  never-ebbing  sea! 

The    Quaker    poet    here    gives  expression  to  a 
truth  which  has  refreshed  and  vivified  modern 


A  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  SADDUCEE      147 

theology,  and  has  brought  us  nearer  to  the  mind 
of  God.  Noble  as  were  Homer  and  the  Greeks, 
full  of  inspiration  as  were  the  Hebrew  prophets 
whom  Arnold  so  passionately  admired,  still  there 
were  left  in  the  domain  of  religion  some  fresh 
aspects  of  truth  and  beauty  for  the  modern  world 
to  grasp,  and  this  is  one  of  them. 

Truth  does  not  lie  buried  in  the  tombs  of 
ancient  Greece.  With  all  his  sweet  reasonable- 
ness, his  culture  and  his  open-minded  rationalism, 
Arnold  was  strangely  old-fashioned  and  con- 
servative in  his  religious  outlook — a  veritable 
Sadducee.  After  all,  the  future  of  Judaism  and 
of  the  world  was  not  with  the  Sadducees.  Men 
like  Paul,  reared  Pharisees,  gave  up  their  early 
creed  to  become  teachers  of  the  Cross,  which  was 
to  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block;  to  the  Greeks, 
foolishness;  and  to  those  Hellenized  Jews,  the 
Sadducees,  both  one  and  the  other. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  IN  ARNOLD 

ON  one  occasion  the  Platonist  and  idealist, 
Frederic  W.  H.  Myers — known  to  all  lovers  of 
Wordsworth  for  his  classic  little  biography  of  the 
poet — was  walking  under  the  elms  in  the  Fellows' 
Garden  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  in  com- 
pany with  an  earnest-eyed  woman.  His  com- 
panion was  George  Eliot.  "She,  stirred  some- 
what beyond  her  wont,  and  taking  as  her  text 
the  three  words  which  have  been  used  so  often  as 
the  inspiring  trumpet  call  of  men — the  words, 
GOD,  IMMORTALITY,  DUTY — pronounced  with 
terrible  earnestness  how  inconceivable  was  the 
first,  how  unbelievable  the  second,  and  yet  how 
peremptory  and  absolute  was  the  third.9'  In 
making  this  emphatic  profession  of  belief  the 
novelist  pretty  well  expressed  the  intellectual 
attitude  of  the  Victorian  age,  a  century  of  spiritual 
doubt  and  unrest. 

To  the  devout  Christian  the  three  conceptions 
of  God,  Immortality,  and  Duty  are  bound  together 
by  an  indissoluble  tie.  God  is  personal;  Immor- 
tality rests  on  a  personal  basis;  Duty  is  a  personal 
relation  with  a  perfect  Being  whose  constant  help- 

148 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  149 

fulness  constitutes  part  of  his  perfection.  As 
soon  as  we  make  God  an  abstraction  we  cause 
the  hope  of  immortality  to  vanish,  and  destroy 
the  very  roots  of  Duty  as  an  expulsive,  impulsive 
reality.  Just  as  plants  and  the  simpler  denizens 
of  the  sea  are  steadily  heliocentric — turning  ever 
to  the  sun — so  are  human  hearts  theocentric; 
and  must  be,  for  their  spiritual  health. 

Many  are  willing  to  accept,  as  fairly  well 
embodying  their  religious  aspirations  on  the  sub- 
ject of  immortality,  the  lines  of  George  Eliot, 
which  begin  with  a  phrase  that  has  given  its  name 
to  a  book  of  the  day,  with  a  passing  vogue: 

THE    CHOIR    INVISIBLE 
O  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence :  live 
In  pulses  stirred  to  generosity, 
In  deeds  of  daring  rectitude,  in  scorn 
For  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self, 
In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars, 
And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 
To  vaster  issues.     So  to  live  is  heaven. 

Such  is  the  Positivist  creed — a  creed  of  abstrac- 
tions; a  creed  limited  to  the  amelioration  of 
earthly  conditions;  a  creed  that  has  no  use  for  the 
continuation  of  personality  after  death.  When, 
fifty  years  ago,  it  was  proposed  to  start  in  Lon- 
don a  Positivist  church,  based  on  the  teachings  of 
Auguste  Comte,  eager  minds  resolved  to  supply  it 


150  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

with  a  liturgy,  and  George  Eliot  was  asked  to  pro- 
vide an  anthem.  "The  Choir  Invisible"  was  the 
response;  and  it  is  an  emphatic  negation  of  per- 
sonal immortality,  as  a  fond  dream  of  the  imagi- 
nation. 

To  me  the  lines  have  never  appealed,  either  as 
attractive  religion  or  as  good  poetry.  Rather 
would  I  describe  them  as  a  string  of  platitudes, 
lacking  the  essence  of  noble  and  lucid  poetry. 
Immortal  life  begins  and  ends  with  personality. 
As  the  babe  starts  out  on  the  voyage  of  life  by 
resting  its  eyes  on  its  fond  mother,  so  the  dying 
saint  looks  heavenward  to  the  divine  face  of  the 
Master,  which  blesses,  invites,  and  welcomes. 

Queen  Victoria,  who  had  shown  herself  for 
half  a  century  the  ablest  statesman  in  the  broad 
British  empire,  repeated  with  her  dying  breath 
those  lines  of  personal  appeal: 

My  faith  looks  up  to  thee, 
Thou  Lamb  of  Calvary, 
Saviour  divine! 

Her  natural  expression  at  this  supreme  hour  was 
just  one  of  those  hymns  which,  from  his  Olym- 
pian height  of  art  perfection,  Arnold  was  wont  to 
regard  so  superciliously. 

And  yet  no  one  was  more  attached  to  that 
exquisite  heritage  of  our  Christian  faith,  the 
church  liturgy,  and  the  other  concrete  expressions 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  151 

of  our  devotional  life.  But  he  spent  an  immense 
amount  of  energy  and  sweet  persuasiveness  in 
trying  to  prove  that  heaven  is  a  kind  of  land 
of  Lyonnesse,  an  exquisite  Nowhere,  and  that 
the  Bible  is  a  sort  of  "Morte  d' Arthur,"  with 
only  a  literary  truth  and  reality  finally  appertain- 
ing to  it.  He  wanted  no  brand-new  Comtist 
anthem  and  Comtist  liturgy. 

Arnold  was  a  victim  of  the  fallacy  that  religious 
beliefs  can  be  stripped  of  mystery;  that  they  are 
all,  like  the  planks  in  a  political  platform,  sub- 
ject to  general  discussion  for  final  approba- 
tion or  rejection;  and  that  religious  constituencies 
have  to  be  educated  up  to  a  condition  in  which 
the  attitude  of  rational  discussion  becomes  nor- 
mal and  habitual.  The  church  might  thus  be 
regarded  as  an  intellectual  club  or  symposium, 
the  members  whereof,  animated  by  a  spirit  of 
sweet  reasonableness,  are  able  to  adjust  their 
platform  to  the  needs  of  the  community. 

He  fails  strangely  to  recognize  that  final  force  of 
tremendous  individual  conviction,  demanding  from 
the  will  unhesitating  obedience;  all  with  Arnold 
is  on  the  basis  of  an  easy  and  refined  optimism. 
A  deeper  and  more  thorough  realization  of  what 
religious  faith  really  is  would  have  taught  him 
that  the  world  is  not  moved  and  impelled  onward 
in  this  way.  Civilizations  are  borne  to  new  lands, 


152  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

not  by  intelligent  exponents  of  their  advantages, 
but  by  fearless  missionaries  whose  whole  life  is 
a  credo;  and  a  civilization  without  this  credo  is 
a  tottering  structure.  The  gospel  of  the  cross, 
preached  by  Saint  Paul,  was  not,  to  the  Greeks, 
sweet  reasonableness,  but  foolishness.  Its  ac- 
ceptance has  ever  demanded  an  exercise  of  deep 
personal  humility  and  submission  of  the  proud 
intellectual  will,  which  Arnold,  with  all  his  sympa- 
thetic nature,  disdainfully  rejected.  The  final 
truth  which  makes  us  free  is  not  found  in  an 
enthusiastic  recognition  of  intellectual  abstractions, 
but  in  mystic  union  with  the  personality  which 
guides  the  universe;  a  mystic  union  which 
demands  a  constant  exercise,  not  so  much  of  self- 
repression  and  negative  self-renunciation  as  of 
obedient  activity  and  ardent  devotion.  Warmth 
and  faith  as  displayed  in  religious  matters,  often 
crudely  and  oddly,  Arnold  treats  with  a  pitying 
sadness  which  suits  the  case  dramatically;  it  is 
the  attitude  of  the  superior  person  face  to  face 
with  the  great  reality  of  life.  It  is  as  if  a  cultured 
Greek  had  returned  to  earth  and  was  gazing  at 
our  modern  world,  "where  clash  contending 
powers,  Germany,  France,  Christ,  Moses,  Athens, 
Rome."  Himself  one  of  the  most  amiable  and 
forgiving  of  men,  who  never  harbored  a  grudge  or 
cursed  an  enemy,  yet  he  had  some  of  the  "defects 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  153 

of  his  qualities,"  to  use  a  French  phrase.  He 
was  too  amiable  to  profess  a  creed  which  meant 
aught  but  sweetness  and  light  to  everybody  con- 
cerned. Because  there  is  much  severe  denunci- 
ation in  Matthew's  gospel,  therefore  John's  gospel 
is  undoubtedly  the  sacred  record  which  brings 
us  closer  to  the  Master! 

George  Eliot,  who  has  supplied  us  with  a 
pseudo-anthem  of  abstractions  which  does  not 
bring  religion  nearer  to  us,  has  also  furnished  us, 
in  perhaps  the  greatest  of  her  stories,  with  a  bril- 
liant description  of  religion  in  its  essence.  The 
germ  of  "Adam  Bede,"  she  herself  tells  us,  was  an 
anecdote  told  her  by  her  Methodist  "Aunt  Samuel" 
Evans,  wife  of  her  father's  younger  brother. 
They  were  sitting  together  one  afternoon,  when  it 
occurred  to  the  elder  to  relate  the  story  of  a  visit 
she  had  to  make  to  a  condemned  criminal — a  very 
ignorant  girl,  who  had  murdered  her  child  and 
refused  to  confess.  Mrs.  Evans  stayed  with  her 
praying  during  the  night;  and  the  poor  creature 
at  last  broke  out  into  tears  and  confessed  her 
crime.  The  good  woman  afterward  accompanied 
the  girl  in  the  cart  to  the  place  of  execution — for 
there  occurred  no  melodramatic  reprieve  as  in 
the  case  of  Hetty  Sorrel ! 

How  beautifully  George  Eliot  tells  the  story  in 
her  "Adam  Bede": 


154  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

"Dinah  held  the  clinging  hand,  and  all  her  soul 
went  forth  in  her  voice: 

"'Jesus*  thou  present  Saviour!  Thou  hast 
known  the  depths  of  all  sorrow;  thou  hast 
entered  that  black  darkness  where  God  is  not, 
and  hast  uttered  the  cry  of  the  fors:.  .  . 

"  'Saviour!  it  is  yet  time — time  to  snatch  this 
poor  soul  from  everlasting  darkness.  I  believe — 
I  believe  in  thy  infinite  love.  What  is  my  love 
or  my  pleading?  It  is  quenched  in  thine 
can  only  clasp  her  in  my  weak  arms,  and  urge  her 
with  my  weak  pity.  Thou — thou  wilt  breathe 
he  dead  soul  and  it  shall  arise  from  the  unan- 
swering  sleep  of  death. 

'Yea,  Lord,  I  see  thee  coming  through  the 
darkness,  coming  like  the  morning,  with  healing 
on  thy  wings.'  J 

Here  the  impassioned  prayer  actually  bn 
at  last  into  a  rhythmic  chant.     This  is  a  prayer 
for  power,  not  a  mere  aspiration  after  purity 
perfection.     Is  it  all  a  mere  illusion  ?    A  com- 
memorative  tablet    in    the    Wesleyan  chapel  at 
Wirksworth  tells  that  it  was  "Erected  by  numer- 
ous friends  to  the  memory  of  Elizabeth  Ev 
known  to  the  world  as  'Dinah  Bede,'  who  during 
many  years  proclaimed  alike  in  the  open  air,  the 
sanctuary,  and  from  house  to  house,  the  love  of 
Christ." 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  155 

Was  her  story  a  mere  fairy  tale  r  Is  the  Christ 
she  invoked  a  personage  of  the  past,  and  power- 
less to  save  ?  So  Arnold  tells  us,  through  the 
lips  of  Obermann: 


•  befiewed,  M  eartt  H  -  -  ---;-:. 
And  open  stood  His  grave. 
Men  called  from  chamber,  chmx*,  and 
And  Christ  was  by  to  cave. 

Now  He  is  dead!     Far  hence  He  fies 

In  the  lorn  Syrian  town; 
And  on  His  grave,  with  shining  eyes, 

The  Syrian  stars  look  down. 


In  vain  men  still,  with  hopi 

R^ri 


And  say  the  stone  is  not  yet  to, 
And  wait  for  words  to  come. 

Ah,  from  that  silent  sacred  land, 

Of  son,  and  arid  stone, 
And  crumbling  wall,  and  sol  try  sand, 

Conies  now  one  word  alone! 

From  David's  fips  that  word  did  roll, 

"Tis  true  and  living  yet: 
No  man  can  save  his  brothers  soul, 

Nor  pay  his  brother's  debt. 

Alcne,  self-p-is^  heaeeJbrwaud  ana 


Must  labor',  must  resign 
Simply  the  way  divine. 

This  is  a  direct  blow  leveled  at  a  cherished 
Christian  belief.  We  know  from  his  prose  writings 
how  much  Arnold  disliked  the  doctrine  of  sub- 
stitution or  imputed  righteousness.  "In  the 


156  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

scientific  language  of  Protestant  theology,"  he 
states  in  his  "Saint  Paul  and  Protestantism, "  "to 
embrace  Christ,  to  have  saving  faith,  is  'to  give 
our  consent  heartily  to  the  covenant  of  grace,  and 
so  to  receive  the  benefit  of  justification,  whereby 
God  pardons  all  our  sins  and  accepts  us  as 
righteous  for  the  righteousness  of  Christ  imputed 
to  us/  This  is  mere  theurgy,  in  which,  so  far  as 
we  have  yet  gone,  we  have  not  found  Paul  dealing. 
Wesley,  with  his  genius  for  godliness,  struggled 
pll  his  life  for  some  deeper  and  more  edifying 
account  of  that  faith,  which  he  felt  working 
wonders  in  his  own  soul,  than  that  it  was  a  hearty 
consent  to  the  covenant  of  grace  and  an  accept- 
ance of  the  benefit  of  Christ's  imputed  righteous- 
ness. Yet  this  amiable  and  gracious  spirit,  but 
intellectually  slight  and  shallow  compared  to  Paul, 
beat  his  wings  in  vain.  .  .  .  "He  that  believes 
in  Christ,'  says  Wesley,  'discerns  spiritual  things: 
he  is  enabled  to  taste,  see,  hear,  and  feel  God.' 
There  is  nothing  practical  here.  A  company  of 
Cornish  revivalists  will  have  no  difficulty  in  tast- 
ing, seeing,  hearing,  and  feeling  God,  twenty  times 
over,  to-night,  and  yet  may  be  none  the  better  for 
it  to-morrow  morning. " 

An  ungracious  and  shallow  comment.  If  any- 
one can  draw  from  Arnold's  rosewater  religion 
of  sweetness  and  light  a  power  for  salvation  such 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  157 

as  has  changed  many  a  Cornish  miner  from  a 
brute  into  a  saint,  then  it  will  be  time  to  get  rid 
of  the  mystery  of  Christ's  imputed  righteousness. 
Arnold's  aloofness  from  the  main  current  of 
vital  religion  is  modified  when  he  actually  touches 
noble  personality.  In  no  instance  is  this  more 
apparent  than  in  the  exquisite  apostrophe  to  his 
dead  father,  the  elegy  known  as  "Rugby  Chapel." 
Rejecting  elsewhere,  for  intellectual  reasons,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  cutting  it 
out  peremptorily  from  his  patchwork  "system," 
he  there  restores  this  elemental  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity to  its  proper  place.  Faith  and  trust  bear 
him  for  the  moment  irresistibly  on  their  wings. 
In  one  other  passage  in  his  poems  heightened 
emotion  carries  him  up  to  the  same  glorious  incon- 
sistency. It  is  present  in  those  stanzas  addressed 
to  Marguerite,  where  he  bids  her  a  long  farewell: 

We  school  our  manners,  act  our  parts — 
But  He,  who  sees  us  through  and  through, 

Knows  that  the  bent  of  both  our  hearts 
Was  to  be  gentle,  tranquil,  true. 

And  though  we  wear  out  life,  alas! 

Distracted  as  a  homeless  wind, 
In  beating  where  we  must  not  pass, 

In  seeking  what  we  shall  not  find; 

Yet  we  shall  one  day  gain,  life  past, 
Clear  prospect  o'er  our  being's  whole ; 

Shall  see  ourselves,  and  learn  at  last 
Our  true  affinities  of  soul. 


158  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

We  shall  not  then  deny  a  course 
To  every  thought  the  mass  ignore; 

We  shall  not  then  call  hardness  force, 
Nor  lightness  wisdom  any  more. 

Then,  in  the  Eternal  Father's  smile, 

Our  soothed,  encouraged  souls  will  dare 

To  seem  as  free  from  pride  and  guile, 
As  good,  as  generous,  as  they  are. 

Here  he  is  face  to  face  with  an  ideal  womanly 
personality. 

To  the  memory  of  his  great  and  good  father 
Arnold  remained  true  in  word,  and  thought,  and 
deed  during  his  life.  He  never  ceased  to  worship 
God  as  his  father  had  worshiped  him.  It  was 
after  attending  divine  service  at  the  church  of 
Dr.  John  Watson  (Ian  Maclaren)  in  Liverpool 
that  a  fatal  heart  spasm  carried  him  off. 

Arnold's  practical  interpretation  of  prayer  was 
far  fuller  and  richer  than  the  meager  definition 
we  gather  from  his  writings — a  mere  "energy  of 
aspiration  toward  the  principle  of  good."  He 
early  learned  what  real  prayer  was  at  his  father's 
knees.  One  of  the  passages  which  Dr.  Thomas 
Arnold  entered  in  his  journal  a  few  weeks  before 
his  death  is  quite  touching:  "May  God  keep  me 
in  the  hour  of  death  through  Jesus  Christ;  and 
preserve  me  from  overfear,  as  well  as  from  pre- 
sumption. Now,  O  Lord,  whilst  I  am  in  health, 
keep  my  heart  fixed  on  thee  by  faith,  and  then 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  159 

I  shall  not  lose  thee  in  sickness  or  in  death. 
Guide  and  strengthen  and  enkindle  me,  and  bless 
those  dearest  to  me,  and  those  committed  to  my 
charge,  and  keep  them  thine,  and  guide  and  sup- 
port them  in  thy  holy  ways.  Keep  sin  far  from 
them,  O  Lord,  and  let  it  not  come  upon  them 
through  any  neglect  of  mine." 

A  modern  poet  of  extreme  naturalistic  creed 
has  quoted  a  phrase  applied  to  Matthew  Arnold 
— "  David,  the  son  of  Goliath. "  While  admitting 
its  quaint  absurdity,  he  yet  asserts  its  essential 
applicability.  No  doubt  Mr.  Swinburne  intends 
to  imply  that  the  elder  Arnold  was  a  narrow  bigot 
or  Philistine,  while  his  son  rose  into  a  higher 
plane  of  undogmatic  cosmopolitanism.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  might  with  more  justice  be 
contended  that  the  younger  Arnold's  cosmopoli- 
tanism was  his  weakness,  while  his  father's 
straight  creed  and  sturdy  patriotism  were  his 
strength.  A  father's  greatness  of  soul  often  breathes 
through  the  impassioned  words  of  his  son.  It  was 
William  Burns — the  most  conscientious  man  in 
the  whole  countryside — who  inspired  the  stanzas 
of  "The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night. "  To  his  doubt- 
ing son  the  elder  Arnold  remained  through  life  a 
beam  of  hope,  reviving  the  great  truths  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  and  of  a  fuller  life  beyond 
the  grave: 


160  MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

Yes,  in  some  far-shining  sphere, 

Conscious  or  not  of  the  past, 

Still  thou  performest  the  word 

Of  the  Spirit  in  whom  thou  dost  live — 

Prompt,  unwearied,  as  here! 

The  second  line  of  the  above,  with  its  dubious 
note,  is  to  be  regretted;  but  a  fuller  note  is  struck 
later  on  in  the  poem,  where  the  communion  of 
saints  is  addressed: 

Servants  of  God! — or  sons 
Shall  I  not  call  you?  because 
Not  as  servants  ye  knew 
Your  Father's  innermost  mind, 
His  who  unwillingly  sees 
One  of  his  little  ones  lost — 
Yours  is  the  praise,  if  mankind 
Hath  not  as  yet  in  its  march 
Fainted,  and  fallen,  and  died! 

There  is  the  same  tender,  vibrating  string 
touched  here  as  in  his  sonnet  "The  Good  Shep- 
herd with  the  Kid."  The  flimsy  negations  and 
abstractions  of  his  pseudo-theology  are  brushed 
aside,  and  he  speaks  the  language  of  Christian 
faith  and  hope.  He  thinks  and  talks  of  life  as 
God's  service;  of  God  as  the  keeper  of  our  souls, 

who  unwillingly  sees 
One  of  his  little  ones  lost. 

The  "secret  of  Jesus,"  whereof  Arnold  talks 
elsewhere  so  freely  and  so  ineffectually,  is  the 
power  to  help  others  to  a  fuller  life.  It  is  not 
mere  self-renunciation;  it  is  the  realization  of  a 


THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD  161 


fuller  life  by  the  transmission  of  life  to  those  who 
stand  in  need  of  it.  Arnold  recognizes  this  in 
his  "East  London"  sonnet: 

I  met  a  preacher  there  I  knew,  and  said : 

"III  and  o'erworked,  how  fare  you  in  this  scene?" 
"Bravely,"  said  he,  "for  I  of  late  have  been 

Much  cheered  with  thoughts  of  Christ,  the  living  bread. " 

The  words  "thoughts  of"  may  be  eliminated, 
to  the  strengthening  of  the  whole  passage.  The 
insertion  of  the  intellectual  link  is  less  in  harmony 
with  the  religious  trust  in  Him  who  came  that 
his  flock  might,  through  him,  have  life,  and  have 
it  more  abundantly,  and  through  this  transmitting 
vitality  attain  to  sonship  and  heirship.  Arnold 
describes  the  earthly  mission  of  these  sons  and 
heirs  very  nobly: 

Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  files, 
Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 
Stablish,  continue  our  march, 
On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste, 
On,  to  the  City  of  God. 

The  lines  form  a  fitting  peroration  to  the  great 
elegy  on  his  much-loved  father;  thev  are  last 
words  in  a  full  and  special  sense. 


INDEX 


"Adam  Bede,"  153 
Americans,  Criticism  of,  59 
Animals  as  automata,  106 
Apocrypha,  The,  123 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  101 
Arnold,  Matthew,  Goethe's 
influence,  7-10;  a  lover  of 
lucidity,  12;  his  disdainful 
Urania,  15,  16;  Spinoza's 
influence,  20-22;  on  Less- 
ing's  "Laocoon,"  2  2-26;  ex- 
aggerated estimate  of 
Homer  and  Shakespeare, 
28;  his  use  of  "immortal" 
and  "divine,"  30;  his  love 
for  France,  31;  the  Mar- 
guerite poems,  31,  32;  the 
Obermann  poems,  33-37; 
his  conception  of  prayer, 
37;  antique  view  of  the 
ocean,  38,  39;  misquotes 
Keats,  40,  41;  his  final 
appreciation  of  Senancour, 
46;  his  admiration  for 
Marcus  Aurelius,  48,  49; 
early  associations  with 
Wordsworth,  50,  51 ;  his  ap- 
preciation of  Wordsworth, 
52;  on  illusions,  57,  58; 
on  revivals,  59;  on  modern 
Evangelicalism,  64 ;  on 
American  friendship,  64; 
on  childhood  and  immor- 
tality, 66-70;  makes  his- 
toric mouthpiece  of  Em- 
pedocles,  7 1 ;  simile  of  the 
mirror,  72;  the  meter  of 
"Empedocles  on  Etna," 
77,  78;  his  personal  ap- 
pearance, 79;  his  attitude 
toward  miracles,  88;  he 
protests  against  his  being 


identified  with  his  charac- 
ters, 94;  his  fondness  for 
household  pets,  105;  his 
Greek  eleos,  109;  subtle  de- 
light in  pathos,  112;  his 
early  acquaintance  with 
geology,  113,  114;  fondness 
for  botany,  116-118;  mis- 
conception of  the  Eternal, 
1 2 1 ;  fond  of  Ecclesiasticus 
and  its  teachings,  124; 
attacks  Trinitarianism,  129, 
130;  dislike  of  English  Uni- 
tarianism,  131;  under  the 
spell  of  Emerson,  132; 
depreciates  modern  hymns, 
1 34;  on  Bishop  Butler,  137; 
admiration  for  Wesley, 
139,  140;  his  psychology  of 
an  antiquated  type,  144; 
preaches  a  religion  stripped 
of  mystery,  151;  his  dislike 
of  the  doctrine  of  imputed 
righteousness,  155;  his  rev- 
erence for  his  father's  mem- 
ory, 158;  recognizes  the 
divine  sonship  of  men,  160. 

Arnold,  Thomas,  u,  115, 
126,  130,  158 

Atossa,  Arnold's  cat,  1 1 1 

Aurelius,  Marcus,  48 

"Bacchanalia,"  119 

"Balaustion's    Adventures," 

79 

Beauties  of  earth,  Morbid 
teaching  regarding  the,  1 1 7 

Ben  Sirach,  125 

Birds  and  mankind,  no 

Botany,  Arnold's  acquaint- 
ance with,  116-118 

Browning,  Robert,  39,  75,  80- 
83,  76,  94 


163 


164 


INDEX 


Buckland,  Dean,  114-115 
Bunsen,  Baron,  115 
Burns,  Robert,  108 
Butler,  Bishop,  107,  138-139 
"Butler  and  the  Zeit-Geist," 

J37 

Byron,  Lord,  39-52 
Canary,  Nelly  Arnold's  Mat- 
thias, no,  in 
"Canticle  of  the  Creatures," 

103 
Cartesian     proof     of     God's 

existence,  92 
Cat,  Atossa,  in 
Catacombs,  Hymns  of  the,  136 
Catholic  Church  the  church 

of  the  future,  134 
"Choir  Invisible,  The,"  149 
Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  92 
Coleridge,  Justice,  115 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  62,  102 
Comte,  Auguste,  29,  149 
Conviction,  Force  of  individ- 
ual, 151 
Cosmopolitanism,     Arnold's, 

159 

"Culture  and  Anarchy,"  59 
Dante  and  Goethe,  15 
Dawson,  W.  H.,  88,  89 
Descartes,  106 
Dog  in  the  Scriptures,  The, 

105,  106 

Duff,  SirM.  G.,  118 
"East  London"    sonnet,   161 
Ecclesiasticus,  124 
Eleos,  Greek,  109 
Eliot,  George.  148-153 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  45,  90,  131, 

132 
"Empedocles  on  Etna,"  7 1-04 

««T^  i      A      •»          •  •  *        y~ 

Enoch  Arden,     42 

Epieikeia,  or  sweet  reason- 
ableness, 139 

"Excursion,"  Wordsworth's 
56 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  15 

Fox  How  in  the  Lake  Dis- 
trict, 52 

Francis  d'Assisi,  101-104 


Fuller,  Margaret,  on  prayer,  3  7 
Gautier,  Thdophile,  58 
Geist,  the  dachshund,  108 
"Geist's  Grave,"  108,  109 
Geology,  Arnold's  acquaint- 
ance with,  1 1 6 
Goat  in  Scripture,  The,  97 
God,  145 

Goethe,  7-21,  35,  83 
"Good    Shepherd    with    the 

Kid,  The,"  99,  160 
"Growing  Old,"  95 
Gue'rin,  Maurice  de,  39 
Gypsy  Child,  Lines  to  a,  66-68 
Herbert,  George,  126 
Heywood's  proverb,  105 
Homer,  28 
Hutton,  R.  H.,  112 
Huxley,  Professor,  125 
Hymns,  134-136 
Idees-Forces,  46 
Illusion,  Doctrine  of,  57 
"Imitation  of   Christ,  The," 

102 
Immortality,   29,  66-70,  107, 

148 
Impersonal,  Arnold's  use  of 

the  word,  143 

Imputed  righteousness,  155 
"In  Memoriam,"   9,    15,    17, 

42,  116 

"Intimations    of    Immortal- 
ity," Wordsworth's,  56 
Isaiah's    Restoration-Proph- 
ecy, 126 

Jesus,  The  secret  of,  160 
"Jesus"  hymns  of  the  Mora- 
vians, 135 

Keats  on  the  ocean,  39-41 
"Kid,    The    Good    Shepherd 

with  the,"  99 
Lake  School,  The,  52 
Lavater,  84 
Leibnitz,  106 
Lessing    and    his    Laocoon, 

22-29 

Lewes,  George  Henry,  81 
"Literature     and     Dogma," 
127,  130 


INDEX 


Luther,  Martin,  23,  105,  135 

Maclaren,  Ian,  158 

•icrite  poems,  31,32,  157 

"Memorial  Verses,     52 

Methodism,  59-61 

Milton,  7,  1 6 

Miracles,  88 

Moody,  D.  W.,  62 

Mosaic  cosmogony,  114 

Music,  Mission  of,  26 

Myers,  F.  \V.  II. ,89,  148 
i  religion,  151 

Newman,  Cardinal,  37,  66 
>n,  Isaac,  105,  121 

Note-Book,  Arnold's,  8 

"Obermann  Once  More,"  1,8 

Obermann  poems,  32-38 

Ocean,  Arnold's  treatment  of 
(see  SEA),  146 

Oxford  and  science,  113 

"Pagan  and  Mediaeval   Reli- 
gious Sentiment,"  103 

Pascal  on  prayer,  85 

Pathos  in  Arnold,  111,112 

Personality  in  Arnold's  teach- 
ing, 143,  144 

Pessimism,  46 

"Peter  Bell,"  Wordsworth's, 
60 

Pharisee  and  Sadducee,  123, 
147 

Philistine,  159 

Plato,  72 

Positivists,  149 

Potter  and  the  wheel,  The, 

73.  84 
Prayer.  Arnold's  conception 

of,  36,  156 
Psychology,    Arnold's,     142, 

143 

Puritanism  and  childhood,  67 
"Rab  and  His  Friends,"  108 
"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  72-77 
Ramond,  35 
"Resignation,"  28 
Resurrection  of  Christ,  The, 

89 


"Rugby  Chapel,"   157 
Rydal  in  the  Lake  District, 

5° 

Sadducee,  A  typical,  124 

"Saint  Paul  and  Protestant- 
ism," 74,  153 

Sainte-Beuve,  33,  34 

Saintsbury,  Professor,  n,  57 

Sand,  George,  33,  37,  45 

Schleiermacher,  143-146 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  108 

Sea,  Arnold's  conception  of 
the,  31,  35-43 

"Self-Dependence,"  42 

Senancour,  37-46 

Shaftesburys.The  three  Lord, 
128 

Shakespeare,  28,  29,  105 

Sirach,  Son  of,  123 

Smith,  the  father  of  geology, 
113 

Sou  they,  Robert,  62 

Spinoza,  Benedict,  19,  20,  21 

"Stagirius,"  13 

State    church,   Necessity  of 

a,  133 

Stoicism,  86 

"Summer  Night,  A,"  10 
Swinburne,  Algernon,  159 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  8,  9,  16 
"The  Future,"  116 
"Thyrsis,"  117 
Topffer,  3* 
Trench,    Archbishop,    Story 

of,  144 

Trinitarianism,  128 
Unitarianism,  130-132 
Urania,  15-17 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  88 
Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  88 
Watts,  Isaac,  137 
Wesley,  John,   61,   139,  140, 

156 

Whittier  the  poet,  53,  146 
Wisdom  book  of  Sirach,  123 
Wordsworth,     William,     40, 

48-57 


LOAN  OEPT 


General  Li 
iry  of 
Berkeley 


45854 


